Which Venus highland is the largest on the planet?

Aphrodite Terra is the largest highland region on Venus. It lies near the planet’s equator and stretches nearly two-thirds of the way around the world, making it the biggest of Venus’s three principal terrae, or continent-like uplands.

The region is named for Aphrodite, the Greek goddess whose Roman counterpart is Venus. Its terrain includes extensive fractured highlands, deep rift valleys, lava flows, and the major plateaus Ovda Regio and Thetis Regio. The buckled, broken landscape indicates powerful compressive forces acted on Venus’s crust.

A common mix-up is Ishtar Terra, which is also a major Venusian highland and contains the planet’s highest mountain range, Maxwell Montes. Ishtar Terra is smaller but more rugged and mountainous. Lada Terra is the third major terra, while Beta Regio is a separate volcanic rise rather than the planet’s largest highland continent.

Radar observations were essential because Venus’s dense clouds hide its surface from ordinary cameras. Spacecraft such as Pioneer Venus and Magellan mapped these regions using radar, revealing their scale and structure.