From the eight-thousanders of the Himalaya to the great peaks of the Andes and Alaska, this reference ranks the world’s highest mountains by elevation. Each entry shows the height in metres and feet, the range and country, and the year of first ascent where it is recorded.
How it works
Mountains are ranked by elevation above sea level, the standard measure for “highest”. The list records:
- Height — in metres (the international standard) and feet, converted at 1 m = 3.28084 ft.
- Range and country — where the peak sits and which nation or border it lies on.
- First ascent — the year the summit was first reached, where documented.
The 14 peaks above 8,000 m — the eight-thousanders — are all clustered in the Himalaya and Karakoram, which is why the top of the list is dominated by Asia.
Tips and notes
“Tallest” depends on how you measure: Everest wins by sea-level elevation, but Mauna Kea is taller base-to-peak and Chimborazo’s summit is farthest from Earth’s centre because of the equatorial bulge. Elevations are revised occasionally as survey techniques improve — Everest’s official height was updated in 2020 — so the figures here reflect the most widely accepted recent measurements.
The eight-thousanders — the world’s highest 14
All 14 mountains that exceed 8,000 metres above sea level lie in two Asian ranges:
| Rank | Mountain | Height (m) | Range | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Everest | 8,849 | Himalaya | Nepal / China |
| 2 | K2 | 8,611 | Karakoram | Pakistan / China |
| 3 | Kangchenjunga | 8,586 | Himalaya | Nepal / India |
| 4 | Lhotse | 8,516 | Himalaya | Nepal / China |
| 5 | Makalu | 8,485 | Himalaya | Nepal / China |
| 6 | Cho Oyu | 8,188 | Himalaya | Nepal / China |
| 7 | Dhaulagiri I | 8,167 | Himalaya | Nepal |
| 8 | Manaslu | 8,163 | Himalaya | Nepal |
| 9 | Nanga Parbat | 8,126 | Himalaya | Pakistan |
| 10 | Annapurna I | 8,091 | Himalaya | Nepal |
| 11 | Gasherbrum I | 8,080 | Karakoram | Pakistan / China |
| 12 | Broad Peak | 8,051 | Karakoram | Pakistan / China |
| 13 | Gasherbrum II | 8,034 | Karakoram | Pakistan / China |
| 14 | Shishapangma | 8,027 | Himalaya | China |
Completing all 14 — the “fourteen eight-thousanders” — is one of mountaineering’s ultimate objectives. The first person to accomplish this was Reinhold Messner in 1986.
Three ways to measure “tallest”
The concept of the “tallest mountain” changes depending on your reference point:
Highest above sea level — Everest (8,849 m). The standard international measure used in this reference. Sea level is a consistent global baseline, making it the easiest comparison across continents.
Tallest from base to summit — Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea in Hawaii rises about 10,210 metres from the ocean floor to its summit, though only about 4,205 metres are above sea level. By total vertical extent, it exceeds Everest by over a kilometre.
Farthest summit from Earth’s centre — Chimborazo (6,263 m). Earth is an oblate spheroid — wider at the equator than the poles. The equatorial bulge means that Chimborazo’s summit, though much lower in sea-level elevation, is about 6,384 km from Earth’s centre — farther than Everest’s summit at roughly 6,382 km.
None of these measures is “wrong” — they answer different questions. This reference uses sea-level elevation because it is the universally recognised mountaineering standard.
First ascent history
The mid-20th century was the golden era of high-altitude first ascents. Everest was first summited on 29 May 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. K2 followed in 1954. Most of the eight-thousanders had been climbed by the early 1960s. Shishapangma was the last, not climbed until 1964 due to its location entirely within China during a period of restricted access.
Notably, Annapurna I was the first eight-thousander ever climbed, summited by Maurice Herzog and Louis Lachenal in 1950 — several years before Everest — because the approach was accessible and the mountain had been surveyed.