Ras Dejen

Where is Ras Dejen?

Ras Dejen is part of the Simien Mountains.

You will find it in: Ethiopia.

Summit: 13.236° N, 38.371° E

The story behind it

Long before people lived here, lava piled up into an enormous volcano; then rivers and rain cut the northern half of it into deep ravines that drain toward the Tekeze river. What is left of the rim is a wall of flat-topped towers, and Ras Dejen is the highest tower of all. The Amharic name is often explained as the general who marches in front of the emperor, but that translation is argued over. Two French officers, Ferret and Galinier, reached the top in 1841. Below the summit live geladas, monkeys that spend their days sitting in the grass and pulling up blades to eat, and the walia ibex, a wild goat found nowhere else on Earth. Snow falls here now and then, which is rare in tropical Africa, and Ethiopian travellers have written about it for centuries. The height is not settled: an Italian survey once gave 4 620 m, a survey in the 1970s gave 4 533 m, and a Franco-Italian measurement gave the 4 550 m used here.

Find it on the globe

Ras Dejen 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.