Mount Everest

The roof of the world

Everest is the highest mountain on Earth — 8,849 metres! That's like three Chimgans stacked on top of each other. There's so little air at the top that people climb with oxygen tanks. Everest is still growing — 4 mm a year. Tibetans call it Chomolungma, 'mother of the world'. There are fossils of ancient sea creatures at the summit!

Everest (8,848.86 m, measured in 2020) stands in the Himalayas on the Nepal–China border. The Indian plate has been colliding with the Eurasian plate for 50 million years, lifting the sea floor skyward — which is why the limestone at the summit holds 400-million-year-old marine fossils; the mountain rises about 4 mm a year. At the top, air pressure is a third of that at sea level, temperatures drop to −60 °C and winds reach 280 km/h. Above 8,000 m is the 'death zone', where the body cannot adapt. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were first to the summit on 29 May 1953. Since then more than 7,000 people have climbed it and more than 300 have died. Melting glaciers and rubbish are the main environmental problems.

Fun facts

• The summit of Everest holds rocks from an ancient sea floor — the mountain rose from the ocean bed!
• Winds on Everest blow like those at jet-cruising altitude.
• Everest grows 4 mm a year — 4 metres every 1,000 years.