Nepal and China will jointly announce the new height of Sagarmatha on Tuesday, 9th December. Nepal’s Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation and China’s Ministry of Natural Resources signed a Memorandum of Understand last month. The two ministries will hold a meeting online and have agreed to share the report of their respective teams.
On Nepal’s side, a team was created under the Sagarmatha Height Measurement Secretariat that began measuring about two years ago. They used the Global Navigation Satellite System, an advanced technology that is used to measure the height. The Chinese ministry also began measuring the height from the northern side following Nepal.
This is the first time in history that Nepal has measured the height of Sagarmatha with its own resources. In May 23, 2019, the Nepali team ascended the summit carrying a machine to measure the height. According to the Survey Department of Nepal, the team took about six months to process the data in order to come up with the new official height. Both countries have completed measuring the height of Sagarmatha using separate means and resources. This means that some variations in the height may occur on the measurements from both sides.
Sagarmatha is known globally as Mount Everest, the highest mountain peak on earth. In China, it is called Mount Zhumulangma. Currently, the recorded height of Sagarmatha stands at 8848 meters (29029 ft).