Mountain facts and facts about mountains, from the Random Facts shelf.
19 facts on this shelf
The highest mountain in the world is not Mt. Everest. The Earth is not perfectly round, it is like when you roll a piece of silly putty in a ball and squish the top a little bit. Therefore, the equator is popped out. Seeing as how the Himalayas are some ways away from the equator, although Mt. Everest is highest above sea level, the highest point on Earth is somewhere in the Andes in South America
Wild giant pandas live only in China, in the mountain forests of Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.
Mount Fuji is Japan's tallest mountain at 3,776 meters, and it is an active volcano. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2013.
Mont Blanc, on the border of France and Italy, is the highest mountain in the Alps at about 4,806 meters. Its exact height changes slightly with its ice cap.
Banff, in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta, became Canada's first national park in 1885.
Wild giant pandas live only in the mountain forests of central China, mainly in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.
The Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is named after the Rubicon Trail, a famously tough off-road trail in California's Sierra Nevada mountains.
New York's Adirondack Park is bigger than Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks combined.
Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the tallest mountain in the world from base to peak, more than 33,000 feet when measured from the ocean floor.
Denali in Alaska is the tallest mountain in North America, at 20,310 feet.
Colorado has 58 mountains over 14,000 feet, called "fourteeners," the most of any state.
Mount Rainier is the most glaciated peak in the contiguous US.
Nevada has more than 300 mountain ranges.
Apples originated in the mountains of Kazakhstan, where wild apple trees still grow, and the city of Almaty's name is linked to the word for apple.
Potatoes were first domesticated in the Andes Mountains of South America, in what's now Peru and Bolivia, thousands of years ago.
Workers blasted tunnels through the Sierra Nevada mountains to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Mount Hood is the tallest mountain in Oregon at about 11,249 feet.
Mount Hood is often called one of the most climbed snow-capped mountains in the world.
Astoria, founded in 1811 as Fort Astoria by John Jacob Astor's fur company, is the oldest US settlement west of the Rocky Mountains.