China, Nepal agree to adjust Mount Everest's elevation

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Dec. 8 (UPI) -- China and Nepal agreed Tuesday to adjust the height of Mount Everest upward, settling more than a decade of dispute over the world's highest peak.

Officials from both countries announced that the mountain, which sits on the border of Nepal and Chinese-ruled Tibet, was 2 feet taller than previously recorded, towering 29,031.69 feet above sea level.

In this May 27, 2019, file photo, a bird flies with Mount Everest seen in the background from Namche Bajar, Solukhumbu district, Nepal. China and Nepal have jointly announced on Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020, a new height for Mount Everest, ending a discrepancy between the two nations. The new official height is 8,848.86 meters (29,032 feet), slightly more than Nepal’s previous measurement and about four meters higher than China’s. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)

"It is a historic day today," Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari said in a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping that was read during a joint news conference Tuesday. "Indeed, completing this important task with our own human resources and technical capacity is a significant achievment. While sharing this happy moment, I extend my sincere congratulations to the governments and people of both Nepal and China."

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The new height was calculated using geodetic data from a leveling instrument, gravity meter and GPS after teams placed a signal receiver at every station and measured how long it took the signals to travel between the receiver and satellites.

The dispute over Everest's height began in 2005 when a Chinese survey estimated that it stood around 29,015 feet, but Nepal refused to recognize that as the official height as the research was not authorized by the country.

At the time, Nepal accepted the findings of a 1995 Indian survey that placed the mountain's height at 29,029 feet.

Scientific studies suggested a 2015 earthquake may have caused the elevation of the mountain to change, prompting Nepal's government to reassess Everest's height.

"The project was a matter of national pride for Nepal and a prestigious undertaking for the Nepali government. I feel very proud that we were able to complete it successfully," said Susheel Dangol, deputy director general at Nepal's Department of Survey. "Nepal and China jointly processed the surveyed data and came up with the result."

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