Mount Kinabalu

Where is Mount Kinabalu?

Mount Kinabalu is part of the Crocker Range, Borneo.

You will find it in: Malaysia.

Summit: 6.075° N, 116.559° E

The story behind it

The granite under Kinabalu cooled deep in the earth only about 10 million years ago, which makes it a baby among mountains, and it still pushes upward roughly 5 millimetres a year. In 1997 a satellite survey lowered its official height from 4 101 to 4 095 metres, so older books and signposts still give the bigger figure. Hugh Low reached the broad summit plateau in 1851 and decided the highest rock was out of reach for anything without wings; the zoologist John Whitehead stood on it in 1888, though a few sources name 1881 instead. That highest rock is now called Low's Peak, and right beside it the ground drops away into Low's Gully, a chasm about 1 800 metres deep. Between 5 000 and 6 000 kinds of plant grow on the mountain, among them the giant flower Rafflesia keithii and Nepenthes rajah, the pitcher plant with the largest traps in the world. For the Kadazan-Dusun people the mountain is sacred, and the name probably comes from Aki Nabalu, grandfather Nabalu. Kinabalu Park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000, and nobody may climb without a licensed guide.

Find it on the globe

Mount Kinabalu 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.