What is the tallest mountain on Earth?

What is the tallest mountain on Earth? Mount Everest. At 8,848.86 metres above sea level, it has Earth’s highest summit.

Everest stands in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and China. Nepal calls it Sagarmatha, while Tibetans and many Chinese speakers call it Qomolangma. The mountain was identified by surveyors as the world’s highest peak in the 1850s, when it was designated Peak XV. It was later named for George Everest, a former Surveyor General of India.

Nepalese and Chinese authorities jointly announced the current official elevation in 2020. The measurement includes the summit’s snow and ice cap, which is why published figures can vary slightly depending on whether a source reports rock height, snow height or an older survey.

Everest is often confused with other kinds of “tallest.” Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller when measured from its submarine base to its summit, and Ecuador’s Chimborazo reaches farther from Earth’s centre because of the planet’s equatorial bulge. In the standard geographic sense—highest elevation above sea level—Everest is the accepted answer.