The question about what constitutes an official peak and what is just a false summit has plagued mountaineers for decades. The traditional list of Colorado fourteeners has varied from 52 to 55 peaks over the years and has always been based on a healthy degree of emotionalism. Peaks have come and gone from the list of fourteeners for sentimental reasons. Now a growing community of climbers, mountain enthusiasts and mathematicians recognize that summits can also be measured by their elevation relative to the surrounding terrain. Prominence is the elevation of a summit relative to the highest point to which one must descend before reascending to a higher summit. This criteria allows to figure out peak lists without subjective elements.

However, there are still a lot of misleading and incorrect elevation data related with problems measuring the exact height of a peak or determining its correct position. Additionally the definition of mountain ranges and related peaks is a never ending discussion...

The presented lists of highest peaks are not exhaustive and include subpeaks disregarding the prominence criteria. A goal of the future is to define and find corresponding parent peaks and main summits fulfilling the prominence criteria. At the moment the peak lists expand common mountain lists and include complete mountain ranges with a lot of several peaks to climb. A common example for such a range is the Annapurna massiv where every single peak is a mountaineering challenge with its own risks and specific characteristics.

The following images are created from SRTM data. Every red dot marks a place with a specific elevation level decreasing from 8000 m to 1000 m above sea level.

                               

Click on one of the images to view an enlarged version