REVISED HEIGHT ON MOUNT EVEREST
WHY IN NEWS?
- Nepal and China have announced the revised height of Mount Everest as 8,848.86 metres. The new height is 86 cm more than the previous measurement.
Key Points
- The new height of 8,848.86 meters replaced the long-associated 8,848 metre-height, which was, as per a measurement carried out by the Survey of India in 1954.
- The common declaration meant that the two countries have shed their long-standing difference in opinion about the mountain’s height — 8,844 m claimed by China and 8,847 m by Nepal.
- Resolving the three-metre difference, attributed to China calculating the “rock height” underneath the snow and Nepal using the “snow height” which included the snowcap, was the aim of a joint project.
- Everest is also known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Mount Qomolangma in China.
- The mountain lies on the border between Nepal and Tibet and the summit can be accessed from both sides.
Related Information:
- It gets its English name from Sir George Everest, a colonial-era geographer who served as the Surveyor General of India in the mid-19th century.
- It was first scaled in 1953 by the Indian-Nepalese Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary.
First Survey of Everest:
- The first effort was carried out in 1847 by a team led by Andrew Waugh, Surveyor General of India.
- The survey was based on trigonometric calculations and is known as the Great Trigonometric Survey of India.
- The team discovered that ‘Peak 15’ (as Mount Everest was referred to then) was the highest mountain, contrary to the then-prevailing belief that Mount Kanchenjunga (8,582 m and the 3rd highest peak in the world now) was the highest peak in the world.
- Mount K2, at 8,611 metres above sea level, is the second highest mountain in the world.