Mount Meru is Tanzania’s second-highest mountain and the highest summit of the Meru massif.
It reaches 4,566 metres and rises within Arusha National Park, about 70 kilometres west of Mount Kilimanjaro. The mountain is a huge stratovolcano whose eastern side was destroyed by a major prehistoric collapse, leaving a dramatic horseshoe-shaped crater and inner ash cone.
Mount Meru’s summit is Socialist Peak. The mountain is often used as an acclimatization climb before Kilimanjaro because its trail includes substantial altitude gain and varied volcanic landscapes, including forest, moorland and high alpine terrain.
Mount Meru is not Tanzania’s highest mountain: that distinction belongs to Kilimanjaro. It is also not the same as Mount Meru in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain cosmology, a sacred cosmic mountain described in religious traditions rather than a Tanzanian geographic peak.