Ranked: The Highest Mountain on Every Continent
Key Takeaways
- Mount Everest stands 6,204 feet above South America’s Aconcagua, the largest gap between consecutive peaks in the ranking.
- Four of the seven continental high points sit below 20,000 feet above sea level.
- Antarctica’s Vinson Massif and Oceania’s Puncak Jaya are separated by just 26 feet.
This visualization ranks the highest mountain on each continent by elevation above sea level. The data comes from Encyclopædia Britannica and shows how each continent’s highest summit compares, measured in both feet and meters.
Mount Everest Stands Far Above the Rest
Asia’s Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain above sea level, dominates the ranking at 29,035 feet, or 8,850 meters.
The table below ranks the highest peak on every continent by elevation, measured in feet and meters:
| Rank | Continent | Mountain | Country | Peak Elevation (In Feet) |
Peak Elevation (In Meters) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Asia | Mount Everest |  Nepal, China (Tibet) |
29,035 | 8,850 |
| 2 | S. America | Mount Aconcagua |  Argentina |
22,831 | 6,959 |
| 3 | N. America | Denali / Mt. McKinley |  United States |
20,310 | 6,190 |
| 4 | Africa | Kilimanjaro |  Tanzania |
19,340 | 5,895 |
| 5 | Europe | Mount Elbrus |  Russia |
18,510 | 5,642 |
| 6 | Antarctica | Vinson Massif |  Antarctica |
16,050 | 4,892 |
| 7 | Oceania | Puncak Jaya / Mt. Carstensz |  Indonesia |
16,024 | 4,884 |
Also known as Chomolungma or Sagarmāthā, Mount Everest is a fold mountain located between Nepal and Tibet and is still growing by about 0.078 inches each year.
Its extraordinary height is primarily due to the region’s plate tectonics. The collision between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates has continuously forced the Himalayas upward for 40–50 million years.
A comparably extreme but inverse feature is Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest point on Earth. At 35,876 feet below sea level, it is more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is high.
South America’s Mount Aconcagua in Argentina, the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, ranks second at 22,831 feet.
North America follows with Denali, also known as Mount McKinley, at 20,310 feet. While Denali ranks third based on elevation above sea level, it rises farther from its terrestrial base to summit than Everest, whose base already sits at a much higher elevation.
The Remaining Four Peaks Are Below 20,000 Feet
Ranked fourth, Africa’s Kilimanjaro in Tanzania reaches 19,340 feet, while Europe’s fifth-ranked Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains of southern Russia stands at 18,510 feet.
Antarctica’s Vinson Massif ranks sixth at 16,050 feet, followed closely by Oceania’s Puncak Jaya at 16,024 feet.
Puncak Jaya, located on the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea, ranks last among the listed continental high points. Despite its position at the bottom of the ranking, it is the world’s highest peak located on an island.
The Seven Summits Challenge
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first people confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest in 1953. A broader mountaineering challenge later emerged: the Seven Summits Challenge, which requires climbers to reach the highest peak on each of the seven continents.
Fewer than 500 climbers have completed the challenge since mountaineer Richard Bass achieved the first verified completion in 1985.
By comparison, more than 7,500 people have successfully summited Mount Everest.
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If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Height Distribution of the Top 100 Mountains on Voronoi.
