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Although there is no general agreement on the height of mountains and hills, both have some defining characteristics that are essential to distinguish between them.
What is a mountain?
Since the 1920s, the UK’s national mapping agency, the British Ordnance Survey , defined a mountain as a geographic feature rising above 304 metres. The United States was also based on this definition and declared a mountain to be higher than 304 meters. However, this definition fell out of use in the late 1970s.
The word mountain comes from the Latin mons . According to modern geography, a mountain is a set of rocks, earth, stones and, in some cases, lava, which form a natural elevation of great dimensions in height and width. Its height must be more than 700 meters. If it has a longitudinal shape, a set of mountains is called a mountain range. On the other hand, if it has a more compact or circular shape, it is called solid.
Some particular characteristics of the mountains are:
- It is a natural mount of earth, created by geographic faults.
- It has a steep slope and a defined summit or peak.
- It has a height of more than 700 meters.
- They usually have names.
- Depending on the slopes and elevation, the mountains can be challenging to climb.
What is a hill?
It is known as a hill, hill or hill, to the elevation of the land that has a height less than a mountain or mount. The characteristics of a hill are:
- It is a natural mound of the earth, caused by erosion or tectonic faults.
- It is a depression in the landscape that rises gradually.
- It is less than 700 meters high.
- It presents a rounded top without a well-defined summit.
- It is usually easy to scale.
Despite these differences, determining whether an elevation is a mountain or a hill is not as straightforward. The hills may be mountains that have been eroded away over thousands or millions of years. Many other mountains, like the Himalayas in Asia, were raised by fault tectonics and at one time were what we now know as hills.
Interesting facts about mountains and hills
Some fun facts about the hills and mountains are:
- The highest mountain in the world with respect to sea level is Everest, located in Asia, more precisely in the Himalayas, on the border of China with Nepal. It has a height of 8848 meters.
- The mountain with the furthest summit from the center of the Earth is Chimborazo. It is located in South America, in the Andes of Ecuador and has a height of 6268 meters. It surpasses Everest by almost 2 km in height due to the flattening of the Earth’s shape, precisely at the equator.
- Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano located on the island of Hawaii. It is considered the highest in the world, with a height of 4205 meters above sea level. In addition, it adds about 6,000 meters below the sea, so it measures 10,203 meters in total. Due to its altitude and environment, it is considered one of the best places in the world for astronomical observation, which is why it contains several observatories.
- Mountains cover 25 percent of the earth’s surface.
- The Andes is the highest mountain range in the world and the mountains that make it up have an average height of 7,600 meters.
- The famous Windows wallpaper that shows a hill is nothing more and nothing less than Bliss Hill, located in the Napa Valley, in California, United States.
- The Chocolate Hills are an unusual geological formation found in Bohol, Philippines.
- Cleeve Hill is one of the landmarks of Gloucestershire, England.
- The controversy to differentiate a mountain from a hill was reflected in a film called The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain . It was made in 1995 and starred Hugh Grant. The story is about a village in Wales who defied cartographers’ attempts to classify their “mountain” as a hill by adding several rocks to the top.
Bibliography
- Various authors. History of the world, map by map . (2019). Spain. dk.
- Various authors. Current Atlas of World Geography . (2019). Spain. Vox.
