We’re trying to climb the highest mountain in every country on Earth. Scroll down for full country list, with trip reports for 155 country highpoints climbed so far (Eric – 153, Matthew – 97)*. Click on a country in the map below for trip report. For the latest updates follow us on Instagram @twinstothetops.

Europe

 North America

 South America

 Asia

 Africa

 Oceania

Last update: Feb 2026

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 (Israel, Oman, and Bahrain) and not the true highest ground.  We’ll have to go back and find a way to the true highest ground in the future. These are highpoints where the summit is military base surrounded by a fence and the true summit is inside the fence. These are provisionally counted towards the total, but we might change our mind about counting them.

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.

On several countries without military bases on top we got very close to the summit but not the whole way (South Korea Hallasan east summit not the true summit, Syria 50m below the highpoint of Mt Hermon when military would not permit higher access, and Congo 50m below Nabeba summit when blocked by mining guards). These are not counted towards the total country count.

*Individual country highpoint counts: Eric – 153, Matthew – 97. Total climbed by either of us – 155.

*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 GNSS units, data was generally processed and reviewed by professional surveyors, and results were generally published in peer-reviewed scientific journals and major newspapers in the local countries and recognized by local governing bodies). See publications tab for full list of publications. 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, Botswana, Benin, and Colombia (and many peaks in Washington state).  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 over 20ft and now has a new summit location on the SW Rim at 14,399.6ft.

Example mountain pages that are inaccurate are:

Mt Rainier (incorrect elevation)

Pico Colon (incorrectly listed as highest point in Colombia)

Pico Bolivar (true highest point in Colombia, incorrectly listed as second highest)

Jabal Ferwa (true highest point in Saudi Arabia, incorrectly listed 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)

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)

Luna Peak (incorrect elevation, incorrectly stated as highest peak in Pickets – East Fury is highest)