The highest and lowest countries on Earth
Everest belongs to two countries at once, the highest unclimbed mountain sits in Bhutan, and the highest point in the Maldives is about five metres.
Every country has a highest point, and the gap between the top of that list and the bottom is the widest in geography. China and Nepal share the summit of Everest at 8,848 metres. Tuvalu and the Maldives top out at about five metres — roughly the height of a two-storey house.
That is a ratio of about 1,770 to one, and it is not an abstraction. It is the difference between a country that trains mountaineers and one whose government has publicly discussed buying land abroad in case the sea takes the original.
Everest counts twice
The border between China and Nepal runs directly over Everest's summit, so both countries claim the same high point and both appear at the top of the list with the same number. The two governments ran a joint survey in 2020 and agreed a revised height of 8,848.86 metres, settling a long-running disagreement about whether to include the snow cap.
Pakistan is third with K2 at 8,611 metres. K2 also straddles the Chinese border, but since China already has Everest it does not change China's entry. India is fourth with Kangchenjunga at 8,586 metres, which it shares with Nepal — again, Nepal already has something taller.
The full top eight
Highest point in metres, as used in the game:
- China — 8,848 m (Everest, shared with Nepal)
- Nepal — 8,848 m (Everest)
- Pakistan — 8,611 m (K2)
- India — 8,586 m (Kangchenjunga)
- Bhutan — 7,570 m (Gangkhar Puensum)
- Tajikistan — 7,495 m (Ismoil Somoni Peak)
- Afghanistan — 7,492 m (Noshaq)
- Kyrgyzstan — 7,439 m (Jengish Chokusu)
Bhutan's mountain nobody has climbed
Fifth place is the most interesting entry on the list. Gangkhar Puensum, at 7,570 metres, is the highest unclimbed mountain on Earth. Bhutan banned mountaineering above 6,000 metres in 1994 and prohibited it outright in 2003, on the grounds that the peaks are sacred. Several expeditions got close before the ban; none reached the summit.
Central Asia dominates the rest of the table. Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan are all landlocked, all relatively small by global standards, and all sit higher than any country in Europe, Africa or the Americas. Tajikistan is more than 90 per cent mountainous.
What the other continents top out at
Outside Asia the numbers drop sharply. Argentina leads the Americas with Aconcagua at 6,961 metres, the highest peak outside Asia. Tanzania leads Africa with Kilimanjaro at 5,895 metres — which means Tanzania's high point beats every country in Europe, including Russia's Mount Elbrus at 5,642 metres. The United States has Denali at 6,190 metres.
There is one lovely piece of trivia here. Everest is the highest point above sea level, but Ecuador's Chimborazo is the point furthest from the centre of the Earth, because the planet bulges at the equator. Chimborazo is only 6,263 metres above sea level and still wins that particular contest by about two kilometres.
The countries with nowhere to climb
At the bottom of the table the numbers stop being impressive and start being urgent. The Maldives and Tuvalu are both around five metres at their highest. The Marshall Islands reach fourteen. The Gambia manages 53, and the Bahamas 63, on Mount Alvernia — a hill that would go unnoticed in most countries.
For the atoll nations this is an existential statistic rather than a curiosity. A one-metre rise in sea level removes a meaningful share of the habitable land in a country whose entire territory sits within a few metres of the tide, and storm surges do damage long before that.
How to guess well
Start with the mountain ranges rather than the countries. Anything touching the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir or Tian Shan clears 7,000 metres. Anything on the Andes clears 6,000. Anything in the Alps or the Caucasus is in the 4,000-to-5,600 band.
Then remember the trap: small does not mean low. Switzerland, Bhutan and Nepal are tiny and enormous at once. The countries that are genuinely low are the flat ones and the coral ones — island states in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the low river deltas of West Africa.