Mount Karthala

Where is Mount Karthala?

Mount Karthala is part of the Shield volcano on Grande Comore.

You will find it in: the Comoros.

Summit: 11.760° S, 43.353° E

The story behind it

Karthala is a shield volcano, which means its slopes are broad and gentle, built up from layer after layer of runny lava. At the very top lies one of the widest craters in the world, a grey bowl of ash and cracked rock where steam drifts out of gaps in the ground. Walkers who set off from the villages below begin among banana gardens and coffee bushes, climb through dripping rainforest where fruit bats hang in the trees, and finish on bare black ground where almost nothing grows. The mountain makes its own weather: clouds pile against it in the afternoon and soak the forest, and that rain feeds the wells of the island. When Karthala erupts it can dust the nearby town of Moroni with ash, so the people of Grande Comore keep a close watch on their mountain.

Find it on the globe

Mount Karthala 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.