Mount Everestसगरमाथा

Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth above sea level, with an official elevation of 8,848.86 metres (29,031.7 feet). This figure was jointly announced by Nepal and China on 8 December 2020, following separate national surveys whose results the two governments agreed to harmonise into a single, mutually recognised height.

The peak lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas. Its summit sits directly on the international border between Nepal and China: the southern side falls within the Khumbu region of Solukhumbu District in Koshi Province, Nepal, while the northern side lies in Tingri County in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The mountain is flanked by other giants of the Khumbu, including Lhotse, Nuptse and Changtse.

Everest is known by several names. In Nepal it is called Sagarmatha, a Nepali/Sanskrit name often translated as "forehead of the sky" or "head in the great blue sky." In Tibet it is Chomolungma (also rendered Qomolangma), commonly translated as "Holy Mother." The English name honours Sir George Everest, a former Surveyor General of India, and was assigned in the mid-19th century during the work of the Great Trigonometrical Survey.

Geologically, the Himalayas — and Everest with them — were raised by the ongoing collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, a process that began roughly 50 million years ago and continues today, slowly uplifting the range. The summit pyramid is capped by marine limestone and other sedimentary rock laid down on an ancient sea floor long before the mountains rose, evidence of the region's dramatic geological history.

Everest attracted mountaineers for decades before it was first climbed. British expeditions in the 1920s, launched from the Tibetan (northern) side because Nepal was then closed to foreigners, made the earliest serious attempts. During the 1924 British expedition, George Mallory and Andrew Irvine disappeared high on the mountain on 8 June 1924; whether they reached the summit before they died remains one of mountaineering's enduring mysteries. Mallory's body was found in 1999.

The first confirmed ascent came on 29 May 1953, when Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand mountaineer, and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepali-Indian Sherpa, reached the summit via the Southeast Ridge. They were part of a large British expedition led by Colonel John Hunt and organised by the Joint Himalayan Committee. The pair left their high camp early that morning, passed the rock step now known as the Hillary Step, and stood on the summit at around 11:30 a.m.

News of the success reached London in time to be published on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation on 2 June 1953, amplifying the achievement worldwide. Hillary and Hunt were knighted and Tenzing Norgay received the George Medal. Another landmark followed in 1978, when Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler made the first ascent without supplemental oxygen — a feat many had thought physiologically impossible. Messner went on to make a solo, oxygen-free ascent of the mountain in 1980.

Two routes account for the overwhelming majority of ascents. The Southeast Ridge (South Col) route ascends from Nepal and is the line first climbed in 1953; it begins at the Everest Base Camp on the Khumbu Glacier. The North Ridge (Northeast Ridge) route climbs from the Tibetan side in China. The southern approach has more developed infrastructure but is exposed to the hazards of the Khumbu Icefall, while the northern approach avoids the Icefall but is colder, more exposed and involves a longer time at extreme altitude.

The Khumbu Icefall, between Base Camp and Camp I, is among the most feared sections of the southern route. It is a constantly shifting maze of deep crevasses and unstable ice towers called seracs, some as large as buildings, that can collapse without warning. Climbers typically cross it in the pre-dawn cold, when the ice is most stable. In 2014 an avalanche in the Icefall killed 16 Nepali workers, one of the deadliest single incidents on the mountain.

Above roughly 8,000 metres lies the "death zone," where atmospheric oxygen is too scarce to sustain human life for long; the body deteriorates, and most climbers use bottled oxygen. Other persistent dangers include sudden storms, extreme cold and frostbite, altitude sickness, exhaustion and, in the commercial era, dangerous overcrowding and queues at bottlenecks near the summit. By 2024 more than 330 people are recorded to have died on Everest, and many bodies remain on the mountain.

As the highest point on the planet, Everest holds a singular place in geography, exploration and popular imagination. Thousands of people have now reached its summit since 1953, with a growing commercial guiding industry — heavily dependent on the skill of Sherpa climbers — making the ascent accessible to far more people than in the early era, though it remains serious and life-threatening.

The mountain is associated with numerous notable records. Kami Rita Sherpa of Nepal holds the record for the most successful ascents of Everest, having summited it more than 30 times over a career spanning decades and continuing to extend his own record. Other milestone climbs include the first ascent without supplemental oxygen by Messner and Habeler in 1978 and Messner's solo, oxygen-free ascent in 1980.

Beyond mountaineering, Everest carries deep cultural and economic importance. It is revered in local Sherpa and Tibetan Buddhist traditions, and its names Sagarmatha and Chomolungma reflect that reverence. The Nepali side lies within Sagarmatha National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the trekking and expedition economy around the Khumbu region is a major source of income and international attention for Nepal.