Chimborazo and the Highest Mountain Peak in the World — An Interesting Fact

In the early nineteenth century, renowned German geographer Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) first started to make a ground on which a fresh beginning could take place to the development of modern geography along with a scientific approach. Hence he started to explore the world.

During around 1800, Humboldt along with Aimé Jacques Alexander Bonpland, a French botanist, started to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to reach the destination Cumana Port in Venezuela, South America. Later in 1801, they travelled for Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. On his expedition to Ecuador, he explored the Chimborazo peak (6,267 metres) of the Andes mountain range. At that time it was known to be the highest peak in the world. It was remained an accepted notion until the expedition to the other mountain regions of the world in later years.

In between this time, Nandadevi (7,816m.), Dhaulagiri (8,167m.), Kangchenjunga (8,586m.) was explored and respectively presumed as the highest mountain peak in the world throughout the years until 1856. In this year, height of K2 or Godwin Austin was measured as 8,611m., and later on this year, Mount Everest’s height was calculated as 8,840m. from MSL and officially declared as the highest peak in the world. Later in 1955, the figure was adjusted by 8 metres to 8,848m. which has remained the official height of Mount Everest to date.

Though, in the world, Mount Everest is the highest peak above the mean sea level, but the summit of Chimborazo is regarded as the furthest point from the center of the earth. Yes, that’s right, it is due to the equatorial bulge as well as the oblate spheroid shape of the earth. Earth is thicker or bulged around the equatorial region as compared with the poles. Hence in a very natural way, earth’s diameter is greater at the equator. Chimborazo is situated 1° south of the equator, whereas Mount Everest is situated nearly 27.6° north. Although Chimborazo is 2,581m. less elevated than the Everest above MSL, it is 6384.4 km. from the center of the earth, whereas Everest is 6,382.3 km. from earth’s centre.

Nevertheless, if considering the elevation above the mean sea level, Chimborazo is not even the highest peak of the Andes.

Originally published at https://www.studyprobe.live on April 16, 2020.