China and Nepal have jointly announced a new height for Mount Everest, ending a discrepancy between the two nations.
The new official height is 8,848.86m, Xinhua news agency said yesterday, slightly more than Nepal’s previous measurement and more than 4m higher than China’s.
The new height was agreed on after the two countries sent surveyors from their respective sides of the mountain last year and this year.
Photo: AP / Xinhua News Agency
Nepal previously measured Everest’s height as 8,848m, while China put it at 8,844.43m, because it did not include the snow cap.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said the two sides were committed to jointly protecting the environment around Everest and cooperating in scientific research, Xinhua said.
Nepal decided to conduct the survey — its first — after suggestions that tectonic plate movements, including a major earthquake in 2015, might have affected the height.
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