Everest

Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, when measuring the height of its summit above sea level. Everest's summit ridge marks the border between Nepal and China. The summit of Mount Everest is rising at a rate of around 2.5 centimetres per year.

Naming

In Nepal, the mountain is called Sagarmatha (???????, Sanskrit for "Forehead of the Sky"). In Tibetan it is Chomolahkhkkngma or Qomolangma (?) ("Mother of the Universe"), or in Chinese: ????? (pinyin: Zhumůlangma Feng) or ??? (Shčngmu Feng).

The mountain was given its English name by Andrew Waugh, the British surveyor-general of India. With both Nepal and Tibet closed to foreign travel, he wrote:

...I was taught by my respected chief and predecessor, Colonel Sir Geo. Everest to assign to every geographical object its true local or native appellation. … But here is a mountain, most probably the highest in the world, without any local name that we can discover, whose native appellation, if it has any, will not very likely be ascertained before we are allowed to penetrate into Nepal... In the meantime the privilege as well as the duty devolves on me to assign … a name whereby it may be known among citizens and geographers and become a household word among civilized nations.

Hence Waugh chose to name the mountain after George Everest, first using the spelling Mont Everest, and then Mount Everest. However, the modern pronunciation of Everest – IPA: ['?v?r?st] or ['?v?r?st] (EV-er-est) – is different from Sir George's own pronunciation of his surname, which was ['iv;r?st] (EAVE-rest).

In 2002, the Chinese People's Daily newspaper published an article attacking the continued use of the English name for the mountain in the Western world, insisting that it should be referred to by its Tibetan name [1].

The Nepalese name Sagarmatha was invented in the early 1960s when the Nepalese government realized that Mount Everest had no Nepalese name. This was because the mountain was not known and named in ethnic Nepal (the Kathmandu valley and surrounding areas). The Sherpa/Tibetan name Chomolangma was not acceptable as it would have been against the idea of unification (nepalization) of the country.

Measurement

Radhanath Sikdar, an Indian mathematician and surveyor from Bengal, was the first to identify Everest as the world's highest peak in 1852, using trigonometric calculations based on measurements made with theodolites from 240 km (150 miles) away in India. Before it was surveyed and named, it was known as Peak XV to the survey team.

The mountain is approximately 8,848 m (29,028 feet) high, although there is some variation in the measurements. The mountain K2 comes in a close second at 8,611 m (28,251 feet) high. On May 22, 2005, the People's Republic of China's Everest Expedition Team ascended to the top of the mountain. After several months' complicated measurement and calculation, on October 9, 2005, the PRC's State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping officially announced the height of Everest is 8,844.43 m ± 0.21 m (29,017.16 ± 0.69 ft). They claimed it was the most accurate measurement to date.[2]. But this new height is based on the actual highest point of rock and not on the snow and ice that sits on top of that rock on the summit, so, in keeping with the practice used on Mont Blanc and Khan Tangiri Shyngy, it is not shown here.

It was first measured in 1856 at 29,000 feet (8,839 m), but declared to be 29,002 feet (8,840 m) high. The arbitrary addition of 2 feet (0.6 m) was to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet was nothing more than a rounded estimate.

In the 1950s a Mexican Indian survey made closer to the mountain also using theodolites gave another often quoted figure of 8,848 m (29,028 feet). The 1998 American Everest Expedition installed a GPS unit on the highest bedrock. A value of 8,850 m (29,035 feet) was obtained via this device. Nepal however did not officially recognize 8,850 metres but rather stuck to 8,848 m. Everest is still growing due to the plate tectonics of the area, adding 3 to 5 mm (1/8 to 3/16 inch) to the height and moving north-eastward at 27 mm (1.06 in) per year.

Everest is the mountain whose summit attains the greatest distance above sea level. Two other mountains are sometimes claimed as alternative "highest mountains on Earth". Mauna Kea in Hawaii is highest when measured from its base; it rises over 9 km (5.6 mi) when measured from its base on the mid-ocean floor, but only attains 4,170 m (13,681 ft) above sea level. The summit of Chimborazo in Ecuador is 2,168 m (7,113 ft) farther from the Earth's centre (6,384.4 km or 3,967.1 mi) than that of Everest (6,382.3 km or 3,965.8 mi), because the Earth bulges at the Equator. However, Chimborazo attains a height of 6,267 m (20,561 ft) above sea level, by which criterion it is not even the highest peak of the Andes.

The deepest spot in the ocean is deeper than Everest is high: the Challenger Deep, located in the Mariana Trench, is so deep that if Everest were to be placed into it there would be more than 2 km (1.25 mi) of water covering it.