Everest is about four meters higher than previous Chinese measurements and slightly higher than Nepal’s previous measurements.
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Ji and Nepalese Foreign Minister Pradep Gyalawi pressed buttons together in a virtual conference to display the new height of Everest.
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Topographers from Nepal measured Everest in 2019, but a team from China this year. The two parties then agreed on a height.
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The height of Everest has been under discussion for a long time, and there were fears that the peak could have shrunk after the big earthquake in 2015.
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However, there is no doubt that Everest will remain the highest peak in the world, as the next highest – K2 on the border of Pakistan and China – is 8611 meters high.
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The height of Everest was first determined by the British around 1856. At that time, the peak was calculated to be 8842 meters high.
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However, the height of Everest, determined in an Indian study in 1954, was more widely accepted – 8,848 meters.
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In 1999, the US National Geographic Society calculated GPS technology using Everest to be 8,850 meters high, while China announced in 2005 that the peak was 8,844.43 meters because the snow cover thickness was not included in these calculations.
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A group of climbers and topographers organized by the Nepalese government climbed Everest in May 2019 and installed GPS and satellite equipment there to measure the summit and the thickness of the snow cover at the summit.
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Later that year, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal and the leaders of the two countries decided that an agreement on the height of Everest should be reached.
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