List of peaks by prominence

This is a list of mountain peaks ordered by their topographic prominence.

The prominence of a peak is the minimum height of climb to the summit on any route from a higher peak, or from sea level if there is no higher peak. The lowest point on that route is the col.

For full definitions and explanations of topographic prominence, key col, and parent, see topographic prominence. In particular, the different definitions of the parent of a peak are addressed at length in that article. Height on the other hand simply means elevation of the summit above sea level.

Regarding parents, the prominence parent of peak A can be found by dividing the island or region in question into territories, by tracing the runoff from the key col (mountain pass) of every peak that is more prominent than peak A. The parent is the peak whose territory peak A resides in.

The encirclement parent is found by tracing the contour below peak A's key col and picking the highest mountain in that region. This is easier to determine than the prominence parent; however, it tends to give non-intuitive results for peaks with very low cols such as Jabal Shams which is #110 in the list.

Note that either sort of parent of a typical very high-prominence peak such as Denali will lie far away from the peak itself, reflecting the independence of the peak.

Most sources (and the table below) define no parent for island and landmass highpoints; others treat Mount Everest as the parent of every such peak with the ocean as the "key col".

In the table below, where a single parent is listed, the different definitions agree; where two are given, the prominence parent is marked "¹", and the encirclement parent "²".

Of the 125 peaks listed in this section, China has the most: 16. Close behind it are Indonesia, with 13, and the United States with 12. In the Parent column, HP stands for 'highest point on' (an isolated landmass).

The list of peaks that follow is not complete, but the peaks are all notable. Note that island high points (whose prominence is equal to their elevation) can be found at the List of islands by highest point; hence most are not included below. Some well-known peaks listed here do not score highly by prominence.

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