There are at least 108 mountains on Earth with elevations of 7200 m or greater above sea level. Of these, 14 are more than 8000 m. The vast majority of these mountains are located on the edge of the Indian Plate and Eurasian Plate in China, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. The dividing line between a mountain with multiple peaks and separate mountains is not always clear (see also Highest unclimbed mountain). A popular and intuitive way to distinguish mountains from subsidiary peaks is by their height above the highest saddle connecting it to a higher summit, a measure called topographic prominence or re-ascent (the higher summit is called the "parent peak"). A common definition of a mountain is a summit with 300 m prominence. Alternatively, a relative prominence (prominence/height) is used (usually 7–8%) to reflect that in higher mountain ranges everything is on a larger scale. The table below lists the highest 100 summits with at least 500 m prominence, approximating a 7% relative prominence. A drawback of a prominence-based list is that it may exclude well-known or spectacular mountains that are connected via a high ridge to a taller summit, such as Eiger, Nuptse or Annapurna IV. A few such peaks and mountains with nearly sufficient prominence are included in this list, and given a rank of "S". It is very unlikely that all given heights are correct to the nearest metre; indeed, the sea level is often problematic to define when a mountain is remote from the sea. Different sources often differ by many metres, and the heights given below may well differ from those elsewhere in this encyclopedia. As an extreme example, Ulugh Muztagh on the north Tibetan Plateau is often listed as 7723 m to 7754 m, but appears to be only 6973 m to 6987 m. Some mountains differ by more than 100 m on different maps, while even very thorough current measurements of Mount Everest range from 8840 m to 8849 m. These discrepancies serve to emphasize the uncertainties in the listed heights. Though some parts of the world, especially the most mountainous parts, have never been thoroughly mapped, it is unlikely that any mountains this high have been overlooked, because synthetic aperture radar can and has been used to measure elevations of most otherwise inaccessible places. Still, heights or prominences may be revised, so that the order of the list may change and even new mountains could enter the list over time. To be safe, the list has been extended to include all 7200 m peaks. The highest mountains above sea level are generally not the highest above the surrounding terrain. There is no precise definition of surrounding base, but Denali, Mount Kilimanjaro and Nanga Parbat are possible candidates for the tallest mountain on land by this measure. The bases of mountain islands are below sea level, and given this consideration Mauna Kea (4207 m above sea level) is the world's tallest mountain and volcano, rising about 10203 m from the Pacific Ocean floor. Mount Lamlam on Guam is periodically claimed to be among the world's highest mountains because it is adjacent to the Mariana Trench; the most extreme claim is that, measured from Challenger Deep 313 km away, Mount Lamlam is 37820 feet tall. Ojos del Salado has the greatest rise on Earth: 13420 m vertically to the summit from the bottom of the Atacama Trench, which is about 560 km away, although most of this rise is not part of the mountain. The highest mountains are also not generally the most voluminous. Mauna Loa (4169 m) is the largest mountain on Earth in terms of base area (about 2000 sqmi) and volume (about 10000 mi3), although, due to the intergrade of lava from Kilauea, Hualalai and Mauna Kea, the volume can only be estimated based on surface area and height of the edifice. Mount Kilimanjaro is the largest non-shield volcano in terms of both base area (245 sqmi) and volume (1150 mi3). Mount Logan is the largest non-volcanic mountain in base area (120 sqmi). The highest mountains above sea level are also not those with peaks farthest from the centre of the Earth, because the shape of the Earth is not spherical. Sea level closer to the equator is several kilometres farther from the centre of the Earth. The summit of Chimborazo, Ecuador's tallest mountain, is usually considered to be the farthest point from the Earth's centre, although the southern summit of Peru's tallest mountain, Huascarán, is another contender. Both have elevations above sea level more than 2 km less than that of Everest.

Geographical distribution

Almost all mountains in the list are located in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges to the south and west of the Tibetan plateau. All peaks 7000 m or higher are located in East, Central or South Asia in a rectangle edged by Noshaq (7492 m) on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border in the west, Jengish Chokusu (Tuōmù'ěr Fēng, 7439 m) on the Kyrgyzstan–Xinjiang border to the north, Gongga Shan (Minya Konka, 7556 m) in Sichuan to the east, and Kabru (7412 m) on the Sikkim–Nepal border to the south. , the highest peaks on four of the mountains—Gangkhar Puensum, Labuche Kang III, Karjiang, and Tongshanjiabu, all located in Bhutan or China—have not been ascended. The most recent peak to have its first ever ascent is Saser Kangri II East, in India, on 24 August 2011. The highest mountain outside of Asia is Aconcagua (6961 m), the 189th highest in the world.

List of world's highest peaks

Gallery

Sources