Mount Everest’s officially recognized 2020 height is 8,848.86 metres.
Nepal and China announced this jointly surveyed elevation in December 2020. The measurement includes the mountain’s snow and ice cap, rather than representing only the underlying rock. Earlier official figures differed slightly, partly because survey methods and decisions about the summit ice varied.
Everest is part of the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas, on the border between Nepal and Tibet, an autonomous region of China. Nepal commonly calls it Sagarmatha, while Tibetans call it Chomolungma. The English name honours George Everest, a nineteenth-century Surveyor General of India, although he never saw the mountain.
The mountain is the highest point above sea level, but not the point farthest from Earth’s centre. Because Earth bulges at the equator, Ecuador’s Chimborazo reaches farther from the planet’s centre. Mauna Kea is also taller when measured from its underwater base.