Random Mountain Generator

How this random mountain generator works

Press Generate and you get a mountain. Turn up the Number box for several at once, no repeats. Copy takes them. The filters trim before the draw and ignore case.

Everest. Kilimanjaro. Matterhorn. Fuji. Mont Blanc. Annapurna. Rainier.

Everest is the highest mountain in the world, obviously. Except that it is not, twice over, and the reason why is the most useful thing anybody can teach you about measurement.

"Which mountain is highest" has three correct answers

Not three opinions. Three answers, each of them right, each of them a different mountain, because "highest" is a question about where you put the zero.

• Measure from sea level, and the winner is Everest.
• Measure from the mountain's own base, and the winner is Mauna Kea.
• Measure from the centre of the Earth, and the winner is Chimborazo.

Nobody is cheating. There is no hidden trick. The mountains do not move. Only the ruler moves, and each of these three rulers is a perfectly sensible thing to measure with.

Everest wins on the measurement everybody agreed to use

Everest's summit stands about 8,849 metres above mean sea level. That is the number in every atlas, and it is the one nearly every mapping agency on Earth uses, because sea level is the only reference surface that is available everywhere.

Almost everywhere. The sea does not reach Nepal. So "sea level" under Everest is not a sea. It is a calculated surface called the geoid, a model of where the ocean would sit if it could flow under the continents, shaped by the planet's own uneven gravity.

Which is why the number keeps being renegotiated. It has been given as 8,848, as 8,850, and since a joint Nepali and Chinese survey it is officially 8,848.86 metres. The mountain also grows a few millimetres a year, because India is still pushing into Asia.

The rock at the summit contains marine fossils. The highest point on the surface of the planet used to be the floor of a sea.

Mauna Kea wins if you start at the bottom

Mauna Kea is a volcano on the island of Hawaii. Above sea level it reaches only about 4,207 metres, less than half of Everest.

But Mauna Kea does not begin at sea level. It begins on the floor of the Pacific. From its base to its summit it measures more than 10,210 metres, which is over 1,300 metres taller than Everest is from anywhere.

The distinction geographers use is between highest and tallest. Highest means furthest from sea level. Tallest means furthest from your own base. Everest is the highest mountain. Mauna Kea is the tallest.

And even "its own base" is a definition you have to choose. These volcanoes are so heavy that they push the ocean crust down beneath themselves. Measured from that depressed sea floor rather than from the surrounding plain, Mauna Kea is taller still.

Three mountains, and we have not even agreed where a mountain starts.

Chimborazo wins if you start at the middle of the Earth

This is the strangest of the three, and the one that people refuse to believe.

The Earth is not a sphere. It spins, and spinning makes it bulge at the equator, so the planet is wider around the middle than it is from pole to pole. Anything sitting near the equator is already further from the centre before it rises at all.

Chimborazo is an inactive volcano in Ecuador, one degree south of the equator. Its summit reaches only 6,263 metres above sea level, more than two and a half kilometres lower than Everest.

And its summit is about 6,384.4 kilometres from the centre of the Earth. Everest's summit is about 6,382.3. Chimborazo's peak is roughly 2.1 kilometres further from the centre of the planet than Everest's.

Here is the part that ought to be better known. For a good stretch of the nineteenth century, European geographers believed Chimborazo was the highest mountain on Earth. The idea spread largely through Alexander von Humboldt, who climbed most of the way up it in 1802 and wrote about it for the rest of his life.

So Chimborazo held the title, lost it, and then turned out to have been right all along, by a definition nobody was using at the time.

One footnote, because it is too good to leave out. Chimborazo is only the 39th highest peak in the Andes measured from sea level. And Huascarán in Peru is a very close second for distance from the centre.

Why nobody has heard of the tallest mountain

Here is the quiet consequence of all this.

Any list of the world's great mountains is a list of the ones that are high above sea level, dramatic to look at, and difficult to climb. Those three qualities travel together, and none of them is the same as tall.

Mauna Kea is a gentle slope with an observatory on top and a road most of the way up. Chimborazo is the 39th highest peak on its own continent. Neither looks like a champion, and neither has ever been treated as one, because the ruler that would crown them is not the ruler anybody uses.

So the famous mountains are famous for a reason, and the reason is a datum. Change the zero and the whole hierarchy of human admiration reshuffles.

Which is a thing worth knowing about every ranked list you will ever see. Somebody chose where to start measuring, and they usually chose before you arrived.

Ways people actually use this

• Quizzes. Generate five and ask which range each belongs to. Then ask which is highest, and enjoy the argument.
• Climbing shortlists, if you have more ambition than sense.
• Worldbuilding. A mountain range means a rain shadow on one side and a river system on the other. Pick the mountain first.
• Naming things. Annapurna, Denali and Elbrus have all been the name of somebody's server.
• Teaching what a datum is. Three mountains, three zeros, three winners. There is no better example in geography.

Getting more out of the filters

• Most entries begin with the word "Mount", so Starts with M returns nearly everything. It is the least useful filter here.
• Type Mount into Contains and look at what stays behind. Annapurna, the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc are famous enough not to need the noun.
• Type a range into Contains and nothing happens, because the entries hold only names. Use the country in your own head.
• Generate twenty at once and count how many you could point to on a map. Six is respectable.

Questions people ask

What is the highest mountain in the world?

Everest, at about 8,849 metres above sea level. Mauna Kea is taller measured from its base, and Chimborazo's summit is further from the centre of the Earth. All three statements are true at once.

What is the difference between highest and tallest?

Highest means furthest above sea level. Tallest means furthest from the mountain's own base. Everest is the highest and Mauna Kea is the tallest, and the two words are not interchangeable to anybody who measures mountains.

Is Chimborazo really closer to space than Everest?

Yes, by roughly 2.1 kilometres, because it sits almost on the equator where the planet bulges outward. It is more than two and a half kilometres lower than Everest above sea level, and still further from the Earth's centre.

Why does Everest's height keep changing?

Because it is measured against a modelled surface rather than an actual sea, because surveying methods improve, and because the mountain is genuinely rising by a few millimetres each year as India pushes into Asia.

Are there really fossils on Everest?

Yes. Marine fossils, from creatures that lived on an ancient sea floor. The rock at the top of the world was underwater before the Himalayas existed.

References

1. What is the highest point on Earth? NOAA
2. Chimborazo
3. Summits farthest from the Earth's centre
4. Chimborazo and the highest mountain debate