Mount Everest is the world’s highest peak

The peak of Mount Everest rises high above sea level, but when it comes to the distance from "head to toe", the mountain loses out.

Mount Everest rises 8,848 m above sea level, higher than any other mountain, but the peak’s distance from the ocean surface is not necessarily a good measure of the mountain’s height. Mount Everest is located on a plateau and actually only measures 5,400 m from "head to toe". In this respect, Everest is dwarfed by the extinct Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, which only rises 4,207 m above sea level, but its "toe" is located deep below the ocean surface. It measures no less than 10 km from "head to toe".

Neither does Everest’s title as the world’s highest mountain mean that it rises the highest above the centre of the Earth. That title is held by Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador, whose peak is located more than 2 km higher above the centre of Earth than Mount Everest’s is.