List
The most famous high mountains in the world
Mount Everest tops this list with 8 849 m. K2 comes second. Here are the top 24, each one a link to its own page.
| # | Name | Number |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mount Everest Mahalangur Himal, Himalayas | 8 849 m |
| 2 | K2 Karakoram | 8 611 m |
| 3 | Kangchenjunga Kangchenjunga Himal, Himalayas | 8 586 m |
| 4 | Lhotse Mahalangur Himal, Himalayas | 8 516 m |
| 5 | Makalu Mahalangur Himal, Himalayas | 8 485 m |
| 6 | Cho Oyu Mahalangur Himal, Himalayas | 8 188 m |
| 7 | Dhaulagiri I Dhaulagiri Himal, Himalayas | 8 167 m |
| 8 | Manaslu Mansiri Himal, Himalayas | 8 163 m |
| 9 | Nanga Parbat Western Himalayas, Gilgit-Baltistan | 8 126 m |
| 10 | Annapurna I Annapurna Himal, Himalayas | 8 091 m |
| 11 | Gasherbrum I Baltoro Karakoram | 8 080 m |
| 12 | Broad Peak Baltoro Karakoram | 8 051 m |
| 13 | Gasherbrum II Baltoro Karakoram | 8 035 m |
| 14 | Shishapangma Jugal Himal, Himalayas | 8 027 m |
| 15 | Gangkhar Puensum Kula Kangri Himal, Himalayas | 7 571 m |
| 16 | Ismoil Somoni Peak Pamir Mountains | 7 495 m |
| 17 | Noshaq Hindu Kush | 7 492 m |
| 18 | Jengish Chokusu Kakshaal Too, Tian Shan | 7 439 m |
| 19 | Khan Tengri Tian Shan | 7 010 m |
| 20 | Aconcagua Principal Cordillera, Andes | 6 961 m |
| 21 | Ojos del Salado Andes (Puna de Atacama) | 6 893 m |
| 22 | Huascarán Cordillera Blanca (Andes) | 6 768 m |
| 23 | Sajama Cordillera Occidental (Andes) | 6 542 m |
| 24 | Chimborazo Cordillera Occidental (Andes) | 6 263 m |
What is being measured here
Height is measured from sea level to the summit. That sounds simple until you meet a mountain whose top is an ice cap that grows and shrinks each year, or one measured three times by three surveys that disagree by a few metres. Where that happens, the mountain’s own page says so.
How to read this list
Read the list from the top down. The left column is the rank, the middle one is the name — every name is a link to a page that explains the place for children — and the right column is the figure the ranking is built on. Nothing here is rounded to make a nicer story: if two entries are close together, they are genuinely close together.
Questions children ask
Which are the most famous high mountains?
Mount Everest is first on this list.
Where do the numbers in this list come from?
They come from public datasets, named at the bottom of this page, and the ranking is calculated from them rather than copied from another list. Where a figure is genuinely disputed, the page for that place says so.
How many entries are on this list?
This list shows 24, ordered by real figures from the datasets named at the bottom of the page.
Where these numbers come from
Areas, coastlines and neighbours from the ISO 3166 dataset; population from the World Bank (2018); mountain and river figures checked individually. Ranks are calculated, not copied.
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