The world’s highest mountain Mount Everest is 0.86m higher than had been previously officially calculated, Nepal and China have jointly announced.
Until now the countries differed over whether to add the snow cap on top. The new height is 8,848.86m.
China’s previous official measurement of 8,844.43m had put the mountain nearly four metres lower than Nepal’s.
The new height of 8,848.86 meters was determined following what geologists said was the most thorough survey of the summit ever.
More important, it was the first time a single height was calculated and certified by both Nepal and China. Previously, they had different official heights. China said it was 29,017 feet. Nepal said it was a little taller, at 29,028 feet.
“The respect and pride of all Nepalis has risen along with this increase in the height” of Mount Everest, Padma Kumari Aryal, Nepal’s Minister for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation, said at an event in Kathmandu to celebrate the announcement.
In 1975, Chinese surveyors measured Mt. Everest as 8,848.13 meters above sea level, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency.
A survey in 2005 found the summit’s rock height at 8,844.43 meters and its ice-snow layer at 3.5 meters deep. There was one meter of unknown material, probably a mixture of ice and gravel, between the rock head and the snow cap, it said in a report in May this year.