Which mountain is the highest peak above sea level?

The highest mountain peak above sea level is Mount Everest. The mountain rises to 8,848.86 meters, according to the elevation announced jointly by Nepal and China in 2020. It stands in the Himalayas on the border between Nepal and Tibet, an autonomous region of China.

In Nepal, the mountain is called Sagarmatha, while in Tibet it is known as Chomolungma. The name Everest honors George Everest, a nineteenth-century Surveyor General of India, although he did not personally survey the mountain. The peak was identified as the world’s highest in the nineteenth century after the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India.

New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Nepali Sherpa Tenzing Norgay made the first confirmed ascent on 29 May 1953. Everest is not the tallest mountain measured from base to summit: Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller by that measure because much of it lies underwater. Everest holds the record specifically for elevation above sea level.