Mount Everest’s official elevation is 8,848.86 metres, according to the 2020 survey by Nepal and China.
The new figure includes the mountain’s snow and ice cap. Nepal announced the result in December 2020 with China, replacing the widely quoted height of 8,848 metres that had been used for decades. Earlier surveys produced slightly different results because of changes in surveying technology and uncertainty about the summit ice layer.
Everest stands in the Himalayas on the Nepal–China border. Its summit is the highest point above mean sea level, but Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller when measured from its submarine base. The mountain is called Sagarmatha in Nepali and Qomolangma in Tibetan. It was named in English after George Everest, a 19th-century Surveyor General of India, although he did not personally visit the mountain.