Everest, Sir George, 1790-1866, British surveyor, b. Breconshire, Wales. He worked on the trigonometrical survey of India from 1806 to 1843. He became superintendent of the survey in 1823 and surveyor general of India in 1830; Mt. Everest is named for him. He was knighted in 1861.

Everest, Mount, peak, 29,035 ft (8,850 m) high, on the border of Tibet and Nepal, in the central Himalayas. It is the highest elevation in the world. Called Chomolungma or Qomolangma [Mother Goddess of the Land] by Tibetans and Sagarmatha [head of the sea] by Nepalis, it is named in English for the surveyor Sir George Everest. It was first climbed on May 28, 1953, when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal reached the summit. The body of George H. L. Mallory, who died in an earlier attempt (1924), was found on the mountain in 1999.

Tibetan Chomolungma Nepali Sagarmatha

Peak on the crest of the Himalayas, southern Asia. The highest point on Earth, with a summit at 29,035 ft (8,850 m), it lies on the border between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Numerous attempts to climb Everest were made from 1921; the summit was finally reached by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal in 1953. In dispute is whether the English explorer George Mallory, whose body was discovered below Everest's peak in 1999, had actually reached the peak earlier, in 1924, and was descending it when he died. The formerly accepted elevation of 29,028 ft (8,848 m), established in the early 1950s, was recalculated in the late 1990s.

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Tibetan Chomolungma Nepali Sagarmatha

Peak on the crest of the Himalayas, southern Asia. The highest point on Earth, with a summit at 29,035 ft (8,850 m), it lies on the border between Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Numerous attempts to climb Everest were made from 1921; the summit was finally reached by Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal in 1953. In dispute is whether the English explorer George Mallory, whose body was discovered below Everest's peak in 1999, had actually reached the peak earlier, in 1924, and was descending it when he died. The formerly accepted elevation of 29,028 ft (8,848 m), established in the early 1950s, was recalculated in the late 1990s.

Learn more about Everest, Mount with a free trial on Britannica.com.