Fansipan

Where is Fansipan?

Fansipan is part of the Hoàng Liên Sơn.

You will find it in: Vietnam.

Summit: 22.303° N, 103.775° E

The story behind it

Fansipan is often called the roof of Indochina, because no summit in Vietnam, Laos or Cambodia stands higher. The mountain is built of hard granite that pushed up as molten rock deep underground and was later uncovered by rain and rivers wearing away everything softer. Its slopes carry several forests stacked on top of one another: bamboo and broadleaf trees low down, then twisted trees hung with moss, and near the top low bushes and rhododendrons that flower bright red in spring. Frost and even a little snow can arrive in winter, which is unusual in a tropical country. Hmong and Dao families farm the valleys below in terraced fields, and today a cable car carries visitors most of the way up, while walkers still take two days through the forest on foot.

Find it on the globe

Fansipan 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.