The common knowledge that Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth is challenged by a simple question of measurement. While the peak in the Himalayas holds the undisputed record for elevation above sea level, the true “highest point” depends entirely on the reference point. By shifting the measurement from the ocean’s surface to the planet’s center, Mount Chimborazo in South America claims the title. This difference highlights that the Earth is not a perfect sphere, which gives mountains closer to the equator a unique advantage.
Two Ways to Measure Height
Geographers and scientists use two distinct methods to quantify a mountain’s height, leading to the conflicting claims of Mount Everest and Mount Chimborazo. The first, and most conventional, is the measurement of elevation above mean sea level. This method uses the average height of the ocean’s surface as a consistent baseline reference point. Mount Everest’s fame rests on this standard, as its summit is the farthest above this global water level reference.
The second method is geocentric distance, which measures the literal distance from the mountain’s peak to the Earth’s core. This measurement completely ignores the sea level reference plane and instead uses the geometric center of the planet as the starting point. This alternative standard is where Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo gains its claim to the highest point on Earth.
The Geometry of the Earth’s Equator
The reason the geocentric distance favors Mount Chimborazo is due to the Earth not being a perfect sphere, but rather an oblate spheroid. This shape is slightly flattened at the poles and bulges outward around the equator.
As the Earth spins on its axis, the centrifugal force created by this motion is strongest at the equator, pushing mass outward. This results in the Earth’s equatorial diameter being approximately 43 kilometers greater than its polar diameter. An observer standing at sea level on the equator is inherently about 21 kilometers farther from the planet’s center than someone standing at sea level near the poles.
Because Mount Chimborazo is located in Ecuador, just over one degree south of the equator, its base starts on this expanded part of the Earth’s surface. This massive geometric advantage, caused by the equatorial bulge, allows Chimborazo’s peak to reach the farthest point from the center of the Earth.
Chimborazo and Everest By the Numbers
The numerical comparison between the two mountains clearly illustrates the difference between the two measurement standards. Mount Everest, located in the Himalayas, has a universally accepted elevation of 8,848.86 meters above mean sea level, securing its title as the world’s highest point by that measure. When measuring from the center of the Earth, the summit of Everest is approximately 6,382.3 kilometers away.
Mount Chimborazo, a stratovolcano in the Andes, has a much lower elevation of 6,263 meters above mean sea level, making it over 2,585 meters shorter than Everest by that standard. Despite this significant difference in elevation, its position near the equator gives it a remarkable advantage in the geocentric measurement. The peak of Chimborazo is measured at approximately 6,384.4 kilometers from the Earth’s center, making it about 2.1 kilometers farther from the core than Everest’s summit.
This confirms that while Mount Everest is the highest mountain when measured from the global ocean surface, Mount Chimborazo holds the record for the greatest geocentric distance.