The Debate Over Mount Everest’s Name

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What name should we call the world’s highest peak?

In this week’s Dispatches from Everest video, Ben Ayers dives into the simmering debate over this topic. And he does so from Ground Zero of the argument: the giant spray painted rock at Mount Everest Base Camp.

Mount Everest, the name most commonly used by Westerners, dates back to the Nineteenth Century and the British colonization of India. In the 1850s, the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India—an effort by the British to map the subcontinent—identified the peak as the highest in the world. Andrew Waugh, the surveyor general, named the peak for his former boss, Sir George Everest, and in 1865 the Royal Geographic Society adopted the title.

Like many titles and place names given during the era of colonization, the Mount Everest name gave zero recognition to the title used by locals. Tibetans had, for centuries, called the peak Chomolunga or Qomolangma, which translated to “Goddess Mother of the World.”

More recently, the Nepali government gave its own title to the peak: Sagarmatha, which translates to “head in the great blue sky” or “forehead touching heaven.”

So, what should we call the world’s highest peak? It’s up to you to decide.