Mountains of the World

What Is a Mountain?

Imagine standing at the bottom of a giant. You tilt your head back, and back, and the rocky slopes rise far above you, all the way into the clouds. That is what it feels like to stand beneath a mountain.

A mountain is a part of the land that rises high above everything around it. Mountains are much taller and steeper than hills. The very top of a mountain is called the summit or peak, and the bottom is called the base.

Mountains are some of the oldest and most amazing things on our planet. In this book we will find out how they are made, meet the biggest ones in the world, and discover the brave animals and people who live in the high places. Let's start climbing!

How Mountains Are Made

Where do mountains come from? To find out, we have to look beneath our feet.

The hard outer shell of the Earth, called the crust, is not one solid piece. It is cracked into giant pieces called tectonic plates, a bit like a cracked eggshell. These plates float on hotter, softer rock below and move very, very slowly.

When two plates push against each other, the land between them has nowhere to go but up. It crumples and folds, like a rug pushed against a wall, slowly rising over millions of years into mountains. This is how the Himalayas, the tallest mountains in the world, were made, and they are still rising a little each year.

Some mountains form in other ways. Volcanic mountains are built when lava and ash pile up around a volcano. Mountains are usually born very slowly, far too slowly for us to see.

Mountain Ranges

Mountains usually do not stand alone. They line up together in long rows called mountain ranges.

The Himalayas in Asia form the highest range, home to the tallest peaks of all. The Andes in South America make up the longest range on land, running all the way down the side of the continent. The Rocky Mountains stretch across North America, and the Alps rise across Europe.

From space, these great ranges look like wrinkles in the skin of the Earth. They often mark the line where two of the giant plates met and pushed the land upward.

Mount Everest: The Roof of the World

The tallest mountain above sea level is Mount Everest, in the Himalayas, on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Its peak reaches about 8,849 metres into the sky — so high that aeroplanes fly at about the same height.

The top of Everest is a cold and dangerous place. There is so little air to breathe that climbers usually carry tanks of oxygen. The wind howls and the temperature drops far below freezing.

Even so, brave climbers from all over the world try to reach the top. The first people known to stand on the summit were Edmund Hillary from New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Nepal, in 1953. The Sherpa people, who live in the Himalayas, are famous as expert mountain climbers and guides.

Famous Mountains Around the World

Mountains rise on every continent. Here are a few famous ones.

Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa is the tallest mountain on that continent. Even though it stands near the warm equator, its peak is so high that it is capped with snow and ice.

Mount Fuji in Japan is a beautiful, gently sloping volcano. With its snowy cap, it has been loved and painted by artists for hundreds of years.

Mount Kosciuszko is the tallest peak in Australia, and Denali in Alaska is the highest in North America. Each continent has a tallest mountain, and together the seven of them are called the Seven Summits, a famous challenge for climbers.

High and Cold

Something strange happens as you climb a mountain: it gets colder. Even on a hot day, the top of a tall mountain can be freezing cold and covered in snow.

Higher up, the air also becomes thinner. That means there is less oxygen, the part of the air that our bodies need to breathe. Climbers often feel tired, dizzy and out of breath high on a mountain. This is why very tall peaks are so hard to climb.

High in the mountains you often find snow and ice that never melt, even in summer. Slow rivers of ice called glaciers creep down the slopes. When the snow on the mountains melts in spring, it feeds the rivers far below.

Life in the Mountains

You might think nothing could live in such a cold, steep place. But mountains are full of life, with special animals and plants for each height.

Sure-footed climbers like mountain goats, ibex and snow leopards leap across rocky slopes without slipping. High in the Andes, llamas and alpacas carry loads and grow thick woolly coats to stay warm. The yak lives in the Himalayas and gives people milk, wool and a way to carry heavy loads.

Mighty birds soar above the peaks. The golden eagle and the condor, one of the largest flying birds, ride the mountain winds, searching the slopes far below.

People of the Mountains

People live in the mountains too. For thousands of years, communities have made their homes among the high peaks.

The Sherpa of the Himalayas, the people of the Andes in South America, and many others have learned to farm on steep slopes by cutting flat steps into the hillsides, called terraces. They keep animals like yaks and llamas and have grown strong, able to breathe the thin mountain air.

Mountains can make travel difficult, so for a long time mountain villages were cut off from the rest of the world. Today, roads, railways and tunnels help connect them, and people travel from all over to ski, climb and explore.

What We Learned

We have climbed all the way to the rooftops of the world! Let's remember what we found.

Mountains rise high above the land and are mostly made when the Earth's giant plates push together and crumple the ground upward over millions of years. They line up in great ranges like the Himalayas, the Andes and the Rockies. Mount Everest is the tallest of all. The higher you go, the colder and thinner the air becomes, yet amazing animals and brave people still call the mountains home.

The mountains remind us just how powerful and beautiful our planet really is.

Hungry for more journeys across the globe? Travel the planet in The Seven Continents, or follow the rushing water in The World's Great Rivers.