Mount Everest is higher than we thought, say Nepal and China
10531 Min Read
Mount Everest is higher than previously thought, Nepal and China said on Tuesday, settling a long-running conflict over the height of the world’s tallest peak that straddles their shared border.
Kathmandu and Beijing had differed over its exact height but after each sent an expedition of surveyors to the summit they have agreed that the official height is 8,848.86 metres (29,031.69 feet), a bit more than their previous calculations.
Everest is an “eternal symbol of … friendship between Nepal and China,” said Nepali Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali, announcing the findings of their surveys on a video call with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
Nepal had never previously measured the height of Mount Everest on its own but had used the 8,848 metres (29,028 feet) estimate made by the Survey of India in 1954 that includes snow.
A Chinese measurement in 2005 determined that the rock height of the summit was 8,844.43 metres (29,017 feet), about 3.7 metres (11 feet) less than the 1954 estimate.
Mountaineers had suggested a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 2015 which killed nearly 9,000 people in Nepal may have altered the height of Everest.
