Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level, measured at 8,848.86 metres in the 2020 Nepal–China survey.
The mountain lies in the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and Tibet, an autonomous region of China. Nepalese authorities call it Sagarmatha, while Tibetans use Chomolungma. The English name honors George Everest, a nineteenth-century Surveyor General of India, although he never saw the peak.
Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, made the first confirmed ascent on 29 May 1953. Everest is not the tallest mountain from base to summit: Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller when measured from its underwater base. K2 is the second-highest peak above sea level and is generally considered more technically difficult to climb.