Mount Everest

Where is Mount Everest?

Mount Everest is part of the Mahalangur Himal, Himalayas.

You will find it in: Nepal, China.

Summit: 27.988° N, 86.925° E

The story behind it

Everest was pushed skyward when the Indian and Asian tectonic plates crashed together around 50 million years ago, and the collision is still happening — the mountain grows about four millimetres taller every year. The Sherpa people of the Khumbu valley have lived in its shadow for centuries and know its moods better than anyone; many work as guides, carrying gear and fixing ropes so others can reach the top. Climbing Everest means weeks of slow acclimatising, freezing nights in tents, and a final push through the 'death zone', where the air is so thin that most climbers carry bottled oxygen. Here's the surprising part: so many people now attempt the summit that on a single busy day in 2019, climbers had to queue in a long line near the top, waiting their turn in the freezing, oxygen-starved air.

Find it on the globe

Mount Everest is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.