What is the highest mountain in the world?

The highest mountain in the world is Mount Everest.

Mount Everest is Earth’s highest mountain above sea level, rising to 8,848.86 metres according to a joint Nepalese–Chinese survey completed in 2020. Its summit lies on the border between Nepal and China, in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas.

The mountain is known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet. The name Everest honours George Everest, a nineteenth-century Surveyor General of India, although he was not directly involved in discovering or climbing the peak.

Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, made the first confirmed ascent on 29 May 1953. Climbers still face extreme cold, thin air, avalanches, storms, and the dangerous Khumbu Icefall. K2 is often confused with Everest, but it is the world’s second-highest mountain. Mauna Kea can be taller when measured from its underwater base, but Everest is highest above sea level.