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This is a list of the highest mountains in the world. There are at least 109 mountains on Earth that are higher than 7,200 metres (23,622ft) above sea level. Most of these are in central or southern Asia. It is hard to measure how tall a mountain is, so these measurements may not be exact. It is also hard to figure out if two peaks close to each other are part of the same mountain or are two different mountains. A popular and intuitive way to distinguish mountains from subsidiary peaks is by their height above the highest saddle connecting it to a higher summit, a measure called topographic prominence or re-ascent. [1]
For Nepal, the heights indicated on the Nepal Topographic Maps are followed. For China and the Baltoro Karakoram, the heights are those of "The Maps of Snow Mountains in China". For the Hispar Karakoram the heights on a Russian 1:100,000 topo map Archived 2008-04-27 at the Wayback Machine seem to be more accurate than the customarily quoted heights probably based on US army maps from the 50s Archived 2013-07-25 at the Wayback Machine. Elsewhere, unless otherwise indicated, heights are those in Jill Neate's "High Asia".
The region is beautifully covered by Terraserver.com and Google Maps Satellite imagery. Coordinates were established by comparing topographical maps with these satellite images.
The prominence data were extracted from a combination of maps and computer aided analysis of NASA's 3" SRTM data. Prominences over 1,450 m were copied from this website.
The number of ascents and failed attempts up to 2004 is extracted from the Alpine Club Himalayan index. These are the number of expeditions (not individuals) that announced their ascent or attempt in a journal. They are probably quite accurate for the rarely climbed peaks (though omissions were noted), but greatly underestimate the number of ascending parties on the easier and/or more popular mountains, like most eight-thousanders. For instance, Mt Everest has been scaled 2,251 times by individuals up to 2004 .
Given the large differences between multiple "final" measurements of Mt Everest, the traditional 8,848 m is listed. For more information, see Mount Everest#Measurement.