The highest place in the world
Where do you think the highest place in the world is?
As you may have guessed, the highest place in the world is the top of a
mountain. It is the top of Mount Everest, which stands between the
countries of Tibet and Nepal, in Asia.
When we want to find out how high a mountaintop is, we can’t just
measure the mountain—we have to measure all the land it’s sitting on,
too. To do that, we must go to where the land begins—at the top of
the sea. That way, we can measure all the land that slopes up from the
sea to the very top of the mountain.
When we measure something this way, we are measuring from sea level.
All the land in the world is either above or below sea level. The top of
Mount Everest, the highest place in the world, is 29,028 feet (8,848
meters) above sea level.
On May 29, 1953, Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of
Nepal became the first men to climb to the top of Mount Everest. Since
then, many other climbers have made it to the “top of the world.”
Mount Everest, between Nepal and Tibet
