Mount Everest is 29,028 feet high
The core idea stands, but key numbers or details have changed.
TaughtEverest is 29,028 feet, or 8,848 meters. Memorize the number.
NowChina and Nepal jointly announced a new official height of 8,848.86 m, about 29,031.7 feet, in December 2020, after separate surveys and years of disagreement.
What actually happened
The 8,848 m figure came from an Indian survey in 1954. Nepal used it; China published 8,844.43 m in 2005 because it measured the rock height and excluded the snow cap. The mountain therefore had two official heights depending on which country you asked, which is an awkward situation for the most famous mountain on Earth.
The 2020 announcement resolved it. Nepali surveyors climbed to the summit in 2019 with GPS equipment, Chinese surveyors did the same in 2020, and the two governments agreed on a single figure including the snow, published jointly. The mountain is also genuinely moving: the Indian plate is still driving under Eurasia, pushing it up by a few millimeters a year, while earthquakes can drop it, and the 2015 Nepal earthquake was initially suspected of having shortened it. Every number you were taught was a snapshot of a moving target measured by argument.
Newsletter
Get new weekly revisions
Sources
Who was taught this
Still standard through 2020, so anyone who finished school between 1950 and 2020 learned the earlier version.