The 14 Highest Mountains in the World

Mount Everest, at 8,849 metres (29,032 feet), is the highest mountain in the world. It heads a very short list: exactly fourteen peaks on Earth rise above 8,000 metres, the so-called eight-thousanders, and every single one of them stands in one belt of high Asia — the Himalaya and the neighbouring Karakoram. Nothing in the Andes, the Alps, Africa or North America comes within two kilometres of them. And here is the fact that shapes this whole guide: eight of the fourteen are wholly or partly in Nepal, which is why a country smaller than England sits at the centre of the mountaineering world.

The 14 highest mountains in the world

A few patterns leap out of the table. Ten of the fourteen belong to the Himalaya proper and four — K2, the two Gasherbrums and Broad Peak — to the Karakoram, all clustered around one Pakistani glacier system. Counting by country, Nepal touches eight, Pakistan five and China nine along its borders, while Kangchenjunga (also spelt Kanchenjunga) is the only one India shares. Just four stand entirely inside a single country: Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Annapurna I in Nepal, and Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, with Shishapangma the only eight-thousander wholly in China. And every first ascent falls between 1950 and 1964 — mountaineering's golden age — opened not by Everest but by Annapurna I in 1950, the first 8,000-metre summit ever reached.

K2: the second highest mountain in the world

K2 rises 8,611 metres (28,251 feet) on the border of Pakistan and China — about 240 metres lower than Everest, and by most accounts a far harder climb. Its formal name is Mount Godwin-Austen, after a nineteenth-century British surveyor, but the bald surveyor's label "K2" (peak 2 of the Karakoram survey) stuck, and climbers know it by a third name: the Savage Mountain, earned by its brutal steepness, storms and a historical fatality rate much worse than Everest's.

Here is the point that confuses many searchers: K2 is not in the Himalaya. It belongs to the Karakoram, a separate range lying northwest of the Himalaya across the upper Indus valley. That distinction matters practically as well as on the map — K2 cannot be seen from Nepal, and there is no route to it from Nepal; expeditions approach from the Pakistani side, trekking up the Baltoro Glacier. Nepal's connection to K2 is human rather than geographic: the mountain's first winter ascent, in January 2021, was made by an all-Nepali team, one of modern mountaineering's proudest moments.

Where is the Himalaya?

The Himalaya is an arc of mountains roughly 2,400 kilometres long, curving across five countries: from Nanga Parbat in northern Pakistan in the west, through India, Nepal and Bhutan, to Tibet (China) and its eastern anchor at Namcha Barwa. (Nanga Parbat, unlike K2, genuinely is a Himalayan peak — the range's westernmost giant.) Northwest of this arc lie the separate Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, which casual usage often lumps together with the Himalaya as "the Himalayas".

Nepal occupies the central third of the arc, and it is the range's high point in every sense: the densest concentration of extreme summits on Earth stands along Nepal's northern border, including four of the top five. For how this wall of mountains shapes the country below it — climate, peoples, valleys — see our guide to the Himalaya region of Nepal.

Why 8 of the 14 are in Nepal — and how to see them

The Himalaya exists because the Indian tectonic plate is still ramming into Eurasia, and the crumple zone rose highest along its central section — which is exactly where Nepal sits. The result is an 800-kilometre national skyline that includes Everest, Kangchenjunga, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Dhaulagiri, Manaslu and Annapurna I.

For travellers, this is the practical takeaway: Nepal is the easiest place on Earth to stand in front of an 8,000-metre mountain. Every one of its eight giants has a teahouse trek or road-accessible viewpoint — Kala Patthar for Everest, Poon Hill for Dhaulagiri and the Annapurnas, a one-hour mountain flight from Kathmandu if you cannot trek at all. Our guide to the mountains of Nepal covers each peak's ranges and the exact viewpoint or trail for seeing it, and the best viewpoints in Nepal roundup collects the easy sunrise spots. The Karakoram's four eight-thousanders, by contrast, demand a long expedition-style trek in northern Pakistan, and Shishapangma requires a Tibet permit — Nepal is where the world's highest scenery is actually accessible.

Which mountain is "really" the tallest?

Everest's crown comes with a convention attached: we measure mountains by height above sea level. Change the ruler and the answer changes.

• Above sea level: Everest, 8,849 m. The precise official figure — 8,848.86 m — was announced in December 2020 after Nepal and China conducted a joint survey, placing GPS and radar equipment on the summit itself and finally ending decades of competing numbers (Nepal had long used 8,848 m; China had measured the rock height at 8,844.43 m).
• Base to peak: Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Measured from its base on the Pacific seabed, it stands well over 10,000 metres — taller than Everest — yet only about 4,200 metres of it shows above the water.
• Farthest from the centre of the Earth: Chimborazo in Ecuador. Because the planet bulges at the equator, Chimborazo's summit sits roughly two kilometres farther from Earth's centre than Everest's, despite being nowhere near the top 100 by elevation.

None of this threatens Everest's title in any meaningful sense — sea level is the measure everyone uses — but it explains the "technically tallest mountain" trivia you may have met. And Everest is not finished: the tectonic collision that raised the Himalaya continues, and the mountain is thought to still be rising by a few millimetres each year.

If the numbers in the big table have set an itch, the cure is simple: the eight Nepali giants are linked above, each with its own height, climbing history and the best place to see it with your own eyes.