82 four-thousand-meter peaks of the Alps

Basic structure of our map

The backbone of our map consists of contour lines at intervals of 250 meters. Thus, the map looks vivid and nicely illustrates the topography of the Alps. In order to give reference points, the map also shows the most important towns, roads, waters and mountains, as well as the boundaries of the three Alpine countries, including their regions, départements, provinces and cantons.

The highest mountains of the Alps

Our map highlights 82 summits above 4,000 meters in the Alps from the UIAA list.

The highest mountains of the Alps can be found in the Western Alps. Piz Bernina is the only four-thousand-meter peak in the Eastern Alps. The southernmost four-thousander is Barre des Écrins. Most four-thousanders on our map can be found in the two highest Alpine mountain ranges of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. But, of course, you will also find all other four-thousand-meter peaks from the Bernese Alps over Weissmies, Weisshorn and Mischabel groups, as well as Grand Combin or Gran Paradiso on the map.

82 four-thousanders

Outside of the Caucasus Mountains there are no European mountains with heights above 5,000 meter. Thus the four-thousanders are the highest peaks in Western Europe and have a high significance for mountaineers.

The international mountaineering union UIAA has appointed a commission to determine which Alpine peaks should be officially counted as four-thousanders. Geographical criteria such as height and topographic prominence were important factors. In addition alpinistic criteria such as the climbing difficulty also played a crucial role. The result was the list with 82 summits officially recognised by the UIAA.

Summit data

For each of the 82 four-thousander summits we display the country, height, topografic prominence, orometric dominance, and the year of the first ascent.

Height means the height of the summit above sea level in meters.

Topographic prominence shows how many meters you would need to descend from the summit in order to be able to reach a higher point. Many of the summits in the Mont Blanc massif have a rather low prominence. This means you only need to descend a few meters in order to reach a higher point, such as the main summit of Mont Blanc. In contrast Mont Blanc's main summit has a very high prominence since you'd need to descend almost to sea level across the plains on the European-Asian border in order to reach the higher summits of the Caucasus Mountains.

Depending on their topographic prominence we divide the peaks into different summit categories:
subsidiary peaks (prominence < 250 m), main summits (prominence from 500 m) and ultras (prominence from 1500 m). We also highlight the highest summits of each mountain range and the summit of Mont Blanc as the highest Alpine peak.

Similar to the prominence orometric dominance (OD) measures the independence of a mountain summit. The unit was developed by Eberhard Jurgalski. It is determined as the quotient of prominence and mountain height, multiplied by 100. Thus the OD can also be displayed as a percentage. The highest summits on any landmass (island / continent) always have a OD of 100. You can find more informationen on orometric dominance Eberhard Jurgalski's website 8000ers.com.

The climbing difficulty is displayed by the UIAA scale in Roman numbers. It is important to note that it only measures the technical difficulty of the climb on the normal route. Factors such as altitude, weather and stability of the rock are not weighed in. A lower climbing difficulty doesn't mean that a summit is necessarily easy to reach.

The year of the first ascent shows the year of the first successful and documented ascent of each peak. The summit of Mont Blanc was first climbed as early as 1786 as one of the first Alpine mountains. The majority of the other four-thousanders was only climbed in the second half of the 19th century.

Collaboration with Vivian Bruchez

Marmota Stickers
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Our matching Marmota sticker set lets you mark your very own Alpine experiences.

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