Mount Apo

Where is Mount Apo?

Mount Apo is part of the Apo-Talomo Range (Mindanao).

You will find it in: the Philippines.

Summit: 6.987° N, 125.271° E

The story behind it

Apo stands where Davao City, Davao del Sur and Cotabato meet on the island of Mindanao. Its name comes from the Lumad peoples and means roughly "revered elder"; the full old name, Apo Sandawa, belongs to the guardian spirit of the mountain. The summit is not a pointed cone but a broad flat cap with three high points, and yellow sulphur crusts steam near the top. On the way up, hikers camp at Lake Venado, a shallow lake at about 2 280 metres that sometimes dries into a meadow. The forests below are home to the Philippine eagle, a huge bird with a shaggy crest that hunts monkeys and colugos, and the mountain has been a national park since 1936. The first documented climb was in October 1880, led by Joaquín Rajal with Joseph Montano and Mateo Gisbert. One website gives the height as 3 144 metres, but every other source checked says 2 954 metres, so the higher figure looks like a mistake.

Find it on the globe

Mount Apo 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.