![world_top_peak_prominence](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/World_top_peak_prominence.svg)
This is a list of
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited Summit (topography), summit area, and ...
peaks ordered by their
topographic prominence
In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...
.
Terminology
The prominence of a peak is the minimum height of climb to the summit on any route from a higher peak, or from sea level if there is no higher peak. The lowest point on that route is the
col.
For full definitions and explanations of ''topographic prominence'', ''key col'', and ''parent'', see
topographic prominence
In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...
. In particular, the different definitions of the parent of a peak are addressed at length in that article. ''Height'' on the other hand simply means elevation of the summit above sea level.
Regarding parents, the ''prominence parent'' of peak A can be found by dividing the island or region in question into territories, by tracing the runoff from the key col (
mountain pass
A mountain pass is a navigable route through a mountain range or over a ridge. Since many of the world's mountain ranges have presented formidable barriers to travel, passes have played a key role in trade, war, and both Human migration, human a ...
) of every peak that is more prominent than peak A. The parent is the peak whose territory peak A resides in.
The ''encirclement parent'' is found by tracing the contour below peak A's key col and picking the highest mountain in that region. This is easier to determine than the prominence parent; however, it tends to give non-intuitive results for peaks with very low cols such as Jabal Shams which is #110 in the list.
Note that either sort of parent of a typical very high-prominence peak such as
Denali
Denali (; also known as Mount McKinley, its former official name) is the highest mountain peak in North America, with a summit elevation of above sea level. With a topographic prominence of and a topographic isolation of , Denali is the thir ...
will lie far away from the peak itself, reflecting the independence of the peak.
Most sources (and the table below) define no parent for island and landmass highpoints; others treat Mount Everest as the parent of every such peak with the ocean as the "key col".
Prominence table
The following table lists the Earth's 125 most topographically prominent summits. Of these,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
has the most: 16. Close behind it are
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, with 13, and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
with 12.
Additional peaks
The list of peaks that follows is not complete, but the peaks are all notable. Note that island high points (whose prominence is equal to their elevation) can be found at the
List of islands by highest point
This is a list of islands in the world ordered by their highest point; it lists islands with peaks by elevation. At the end of this article continental landmasses are also included for comparison.
Island countries and territories listed are tho ...
; hence most are not included below. Some well-known peaks listed here do not score highly by prominence.
All peaks with a prominence of more than 1,500 metres rank as an
Ultra
adopted by British military intelligence in June 1941 for wartime signals intelligence obtained by breaking high-level encrypted enemy radio and teleprinter communications at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. '' ...
. For a complete listing of all 1,524 peaks with prominence greater than this level, see the
lists of Ultras.
In the table, the prominence parent is marked "
1", and the encirclement parent "
2". Where a single parent is listed, the different definitions agree.
See also
*
Lists of Ultras
*
List of mountain lists
Perhaps the first of what would become many notable mountain lists around the world was Sir Hugh Munro’s catalogue of the Munros, the peaks above 3,000’ elevation in Scotland. Once defined the list became a popular target for what became know ...
*
List of islands by highest point
This is a list of islands in the world ordered by their highest point; it lists islands with peaks by elevation. At the end of this article continental landmasses are also included for comparison.
Island countries and territories listed are tho ...
*
Summit
A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topography, topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous.
The term (mountain top) is generally used ...
*
Topographic elevation
The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vertic ...
*
Topographic isolation
The topographic isolation of a summit is the minimum distance to a point of equal elevation, representing a radius of dominance in which the peak is the highest point. It can be calculated for small hills and islands as well as for major mountain ...
*
Topographic prominence
In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...
*
Ultra-prominent summit
An ultra-prominent peak, or Ultra for short, is a mountain summit with a topographic prominence of or more; it is also called a P1500.
The prominence of a peak is the minimum height of climb to the summit on any route from a higher peak, or fro ...
Notes
*.By convention, cols created by human activity are not counted. Therefore, the
Suez
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...
,
Panama
Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...
and other canals are ignored in these calculations. Cuts that lower the natural elevations of mountain passes are also ignored.
Towers, monuments and similar on the peaks are also ignored.
References
External links
World peaks with 4000 meters of prominencefro
peakbagger.com originally compiled by David Metzler and Eberhard Jurgalski, and updated with the help of others as new elevation information, especially
SRTM
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is an international research effort that obtained digital elevation models on a near-global scale from 56°S to 60°N, to generate the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Ea ...
, has become available.
World top 100 most prominent peaks from the same authors as the top 50.
Map of the top 50by Ken Jones
Compiled by Aaron Maizlish. The latest estimate is that there are 1,516.
{{portalbar, Mountains, Lists
Peaks, Prominence