Khan Tengri

Where is Khan Tengri?

Khan Tengri is part of the Tian Shan.

You will find it in: Kazakhstan.

Summit: 42.211° N, 80.175° E

The story behind it

The mountain is built of marble, and when the last sunlight hits it the whole pyramid turns a deep red. That is why people in the region called it Kan Too, Blood Mountain, while the name Khan Tengri itself is usually translated as Lord of the Sky. Its height comes with an asterisk: the rock reaches 6 995 metres and only the ice cap on top pushes it to 7 010 metres, so whether it really counts as a seven-thousander depends on the snow. Mapmakers once believed it was the highest mountain in the Tian Shan, until the 1943 survey handed that title to Jengish Chokusu next door. The first ascent was made in 1931 by a Ukrainian team led by Mikhail Pogrebetsky, who climbed from the south and then followed the west ridge. The summit stands where Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and China meet, above the ice of the Engilchek glacier.

Find it on the globe

Khan Tengri 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.