We’re trying to climb the highest mountain in every country on Earth. Scroll down for full country list, with trip reports and pictures for 146 country highpoints climbed so far (Eric – 144, Matthew – 97)*. For the latest updates follow us on Instagram @twinstothetops.

Europe

 North America

 South America

 Asia

 Africa

 Oceania

Last update: Feb 2025

On July 23, 2016, with an ascent of Russia’s Mt Elbrus, Eric finished climbing the highest mountain in all European countries (mainland highpoints for UK, Denmark). On June 11th, 2015, with our ascent of Cuba’s Pico Turquino, we became the first people to climb the highest mountain in all 23 North American countries. Read the writeup in the MIT Tech Newspaper, and our own  press release.

We define countries as UN member and observer states plus antarctica. There are  193 UN members, plus two observer states (The Holy See and Palestine), plus antarctica, thus there are 196 highpoints on our list.

We define the highpoint as the highest natural point on the day the country is visited on any land owned by the country excluding foreign embassies. So, for instance, the highpoint of the Netherlands is Mt Scenery on Saba Island in the Caribbean. We do not recognize country claims to portions of Antarctica as these are not recognized by the UN. This affects Antarctic claims by the UK and Australia.

In the case of peaks with snowcaps that vary year to year we count the highpoint as the highest point of natural rock, dirt, snow, or ice the day visited. This is relevant for Mt Cook, New Zealand, which can be very difficult or relatively easy depending on summit ridge ice conditions. It is also relevant for Kebnekaise, Sweden, whose southern summit in 2010 when we visited was the highpoint, but it has since melted down, revealing a now higher northern summit.

We do not count termite mounds towards a peak’s elevation. This rule affects only the Gambia highpoint.

We define the country’s continent as the continent the country capital is located in. (So, for instance, this puts Turkey in Asia).

*Of the country highpoints climbed, on three of them we got to the highest legal point (Cyprus, Israel, and South Korea) and not the true highest ground.  We’ll have to go back and find a way to the true highest ground in the future. On three other countries (Australia, Denmark, and the UK) we climbed only the mainland highpoint and not the true country highpoint (which are on Heard Island, Greenland, and Tristan da Cunha or South Georgia respectively). These are not counted towards the total.

*Individual country highpoint counts: Eric – 144, Matthew – 97. Total climbed by either of us – 146.

*Our country definition means every piece of land on earth is part of a country.

*Note: we have recently learned that Wikipedia administrators have purged all pages of all elevation data from surveys of country highpoints we have conducted. (These surveys have used professional survey-grade differential GPS units, data was generally processed and reviewed by professional surveyors, and results were generally published in peer-reviewed journals and major newspapers in the local countries and recognized by local governing bodies). These are often measurements for peaks that have never been surveyed before, where our measurements are the only ones that have ever been conducted. Country highpointers can not trust Wikipedia for accurate information on these mountains. This is relevant for new country highpoints we have discovered and surveyed in Saudi Arabia, Togo, Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Uzbekistan, and Colombia. For these country highpoints, Wikipedia data is inaccurate and misleading, generally giving the incorrect mountain as the country highpoint. Peakbagger.com contains the most accurate, up-to-date ground survey data from us and from other surveyors.

The purge appears to be motivated by Eric’s recent discovery that Rainier has melted down by 21.8ft and now has a new summit location on the SW Rim at 14,399.6ft. Senior Wikipedia moderators are very mad about this discovery.

This is a good case study in why Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information. While it may appear to cite reliable sources, biased moderators can choose to not cite updated and more reliable sources. And while Wikipedia may advertize as being editable by anyone, in fact a few very powerful senior moderators have full control of the pages.

AI search tools generally return correct mountain information and are always improving, so it appears Wikipedia will soon become obsolete anyways.

Example mountain pages that are inaccurate are:

Jabal Ferwa (in fact the tallest mountain in Saudi Arabia, incorrectly stated as second highest)

Jabal Sauda(incorrectly stated as highest point in Saudi Arabia)

Khazret Sultan(incorrectly stated as highest point in Uzbekistan)

Alpomish (since deleted, was the page for the Uzbekistan highpoint)

Mount Agou (incorrectly stated as highest point in Togo)

Mount Atilakoutse (since deleted, was page for highest point in Togo)

Gambia (gives incorrect location and elevation of highpoint)

Pico Cristobol Colon (incorrect elevation, incorrectly listed as Colombia highpoint)

Pico Bolivar (incorrect elevation, actually the country highpoint of Colombia)

Monte Torin (incorrectly listed as highpoint of Guinea-Bissau – Dongol Ronde is the highpoint)

Mount Fury (incorrect elevation, actually highest peak in the pickets, based on updated surveys, whose results have been deleted)

For an entertaining glimpse into the weird world of senior wikpedia moderators with clear lack of expertise in the field trying to defend clearly inaccurate mountain elevation data, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Jabal_Soudah#Highest_Point_in_Saudi_Arabia_%28continued%29

One particular quote in the above discussion is very telling: “findings need to be reflected in sources not connected to Gilbertson.”

This gives an excellent example of why Wikipedia mountain elevation data will never be reliable.