Mount Roraima is the distinctive table-top mountain whose plateau meets Venezuela, Guyana and Brazil.
It is a tepui, a flat-topped sandstone mountain rising abruptly from the surrounding Gran Sabana. The summit plateau reaches about 2,810 metres, while the mountain’s cliffs tower hundreds of metres above the lowlands. Heavy rain, mist and waterfalls shape its unusual landscape.
The Venezuelan portion lies within Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Mount Roraima’s isolated summit supports plants and animals found nowhere else, including carnivorous plants adapted to nutrient-poor sandstone soils. Its dramatic cliffs helped inspire descriptions of fictional lost worlds.
British explorer Everard im Thurn reached the plateau in 1884, approaching from the Venezuelan side. Mount Roraima is sometimes confused with Auyán-tepui, the nearby tepui associated with Angel Falls, the world’s highest uninterrupted waterfall.