Mount Everest's Official Height Was Wrong for 65 Years, Until Nepal and China Finally Agreed in 2020

Records & People The number on every map, 8,848.86 metres, only became official in December 2020, after two countries spent a decade measuring the same mountain. By Laxman Rawal · Sep 7, 2026 Read the full story

Everest is 8,848.86 metres above sea level. That figure only became official on 8 December 2020, when the foreign ministers of Nepal and China pressed a button at the same moment during a livestreamed ceremony and revealed a number neither country had… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Why two countries got two different answers

The gap was never really about the mountain growing overnight, though it does grow, slowly. It was about what counted as the top. China's 2005 figure measured bare rock, stripping out the snow and ice cap that every climber actually stands on. Nepal, and most… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

How the 2020 number was measured

Nepal ended its dependence on foreign survey data in 2017, training its own geodetic team to carry GPS receivers and gravity meters to the summit alongside oxygen bottles and rope. A Nepali team completed the climb and survey in May 2019; a Chinese team… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

Is Everest still growing?

The 2019—2020 expedition data was also used to settle a separate worry. After the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, some geologists suspected Everest might have lost height as the crust shifted. The new survey found no evidence of that — if anything, the mountain has… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

What this means for trekkers

What this means for you Nothing about the trek itself changes — permits, routes and difficulty ratings are exactly as they were before 2020. What the joint survey actually confirms is that the mountain you're looking at from the trail is still growing… Travel Himalaya Nepal · News Read the full story

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