Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. It rises about 29,032 feet (8,849 meters), or about 5 1/2 miles (8.85 kilometers), above sea level. Everest is one of the mountains that make up the Himalaya. It straddles the border between Tibet, a region in southwestern China, and Nepal.
Mount Everest was named for Sir George Everest, a British surveyor-general of India in the 1800’s. Tibetans call Mount Everest Chomolungma. Nepalese call the mountain Sagarmatha.
The same geological forces that created Mount Everest are still at work. The mountain’s height may fluctuate, as it gradually grows higher over the course of many centuries.
Estimating Everest’s height requires complex measurements and calculations to determine both the position of the peak and the point where sea level would be located beneath the mountain. In 2019, Nepal sent a survey team to the top of Everest, and China sent a team in 2020. The teams took measurements using advanced satellite technology, radar, and traditional survey instruments. In late 2020, the two countries announced their agreement on a measurement of 29,032 feet (8,849 meters), including the mountain’s snowcap. Since 2010, they had used a figure of 29,029 feet (8,848 meters), based on a 1954 Indian survey, as well as a Chinese estimate of 29,016 feet (8,444 meters) without the snow cap. In 1999, an American-sponsored research team used satellite technology to estimate a height of about 29,035 feet (8,850 meters).
Many climbers have tried to scale Mount Everest since the British first saw it in the 1850’s. Avalanches, crevasses, and strong winds have combined with extreme steepness and thin air to make the climb difficult. On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa guide, became the first men to reach the top. They were part of a British expedition led by Sir John Hunt. It left Kathmandu, Nepal, on March 10, 1953, and approached the mountain from its south side—which had been called unclimbable. As the climbers advanced up the slopes, they set up a series of camps, each with fewer members. The last camp, one small tent at 27,900 feet (8,504 meters), was set up by Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, who reached the summit alone. See Hillary, Sir Edmund P.; Tenzing Norgay.
In 1956, a Swiss expedition climbed Mount Everest twice. The expedition also became the first group to scale Lhotse, the fourth highest peak in the world and one of the several summits that make up the Mount Everest massif (the main part of a mountain range).
In 1963, Norman G. Dyhrenfurth led a United States expedition that climbed Mount Everest. On May 1, James W. Whittaker, accompanied by Nepalese guide Nawang Gombu, became the first American to reach the top. He climbed to the summit from the south. Thomas F. Hornbein and William F. Unsoeld, members of the same expedition, became the first people to scale the difficult west ridge. They reached the top on May 22.
On May 16, 1975, Junko Tabei of Japan became the first woman to reach the top. Her party climbed the southeast ridge. Later that year, on September 24, Dougal Haston and Doug Scott became the first climbers to reach the top by climbing the mountain’s southwest face. Haston and Scott were part of a British expedition. On May 10, 1980, two members of a Japanese expedition, Takashi Ozaki and Tsuneo Shigehiro, became the first people to reach the top from the north.
On May 5, 1988, two expeditions reached the top of Mount Everest from opposite sides for the first time. The climbing teams consisted of members from China, Japan, and Nepal. A team of three began in Nepal and climbed the mountain’s south face. A team of eight began its climb of the north face in Tibet. 
Some Sherpas claim a creature that they call the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, lives around Everest. But climbers have not seen it.
