Reaching New Heights

The world’s tallest mountain recently got a little taller. The new official height of Mount Everest is 29,032 feet.

Everest sits on the border between two Asian countries, China and Nepal. Since the 1950s, Nepal had claimed that the mountain was 29,028 feet above sea level. But China had said that Everest was several feet shorter. To confuse things further, some other nations, including the U.S., had come up with different measurements. In 2019, the leaders of Nepal and China decided to work together to clear up the confusion once and for all.

The job of figuring out the exact height of Everest was up to surveyors. Teams from both nations had to make the dangerous trek to the summit of the mountain. They had to brave below-freezing temperatures, strong winds, and steep, icy slopes to make their way to the top of Everest.

The surveyors carried Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. These devices use technology similar to that used by smartphones to pinpoint our exact location. The teams also took other measurements with surveying tools positioned around the mountain.

Surveyors used all the data they collected to figure out the precise height. Now the people who climb Mount Everest will know just what great heights they have reached!