The new height of Mt Everest also known as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Mt Chomolungma in China has been revealed today. The new measured height of the world’s highest mountain stands at 8,848.86 metres.

According to the Director General at the Survey Department, Prakash Joshi, the joint processing of the survey data was done in collaboration with China and approved by Nepal Government.

Everest’s revised height was officially announced jointly by Nepali and Chinese officials virtually. Minister for Foreign Affairs Pradeep Kumar Gyawali and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi were present at the virtual programme.

During the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Nepal in October last year, the two neighboring countries had agreed to jointly announce the height of Everest. Since then, Nepali and Chinese officials had reached a consensus on jointly announcing the new official height of Everest, which straddles the two countries.

The announcement of Everest’s new height has brought to an end the 15-year-old disagreement between the two countries on whether to recognise the “snow height” or the “rock height” of the mountain as its official height.

This is the first time Nepal Government measured the height of Mt Everest on its own.

The widely accepted height of 8,848 metres was determined by the Survey of India in 1954 from Bihar using the trigonometric method.

Later in 2005, the Chinese State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping re-measured the peak and declared 8,844.43 meters as the Everest rock-height. Chinese and Nepali officials had then disagreed over the height.