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 145 country highpoints climbed so far (Eric – 143, Matthew – 97)*. For the latest updates follow us on Instagram @twinstothetops.

Europe

 North America

 South America

 Asia

 Africa

 Oceania

Last update: March 2024

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 – 143, Matthew – 97. Total climbed by either of us – 145.

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

*Note: we have recently learned that Wikipedia is actively purging its 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 major newspapers in the local countries or in the American Alpine Journal). 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, and Uzbekistan. 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. Wikipedia editors are also purging Peakbagger.com elevations from other mountain pages now. So it is likely that many other elevations of peaks around the world will also become inaccurate on Wikipedia soon, and country highpoint information is inaccurate in general.

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.