Interesting Facts about the Himalayas

Only 70 million years old, the Himalayas are the youngest mountain range in the world. They are part of the greater Hindu Kush range, which starts in Afghanistan and goes all the way to Myanmar. They are formed by the colliding of two land masses and are still growing at around 2 mm a year.

Check out some of the interesting facts surrounding the Himalayas

• The word HIMALAYA means Home or Abode of Snow.
• In Nepal, the word HIMAL is more common and is technically assigned only to mountains that have snow on top of them.
• Approximately every 80 years, the two land masses grinding against each other give way to a massive earthquake.
• The latest earthquake was in 2015, where the capital Kathmandu rose by a meter and shifted three meters to the south.
• Fourteen mountains in the Himalayas exceed 8000m and eight of them are in Nepal.
• Himalayan Rivers are older than the Himalayas themselves.
• Massive Rivers like the Ganges, Indus, Yangtze, Mekong and the Brahmaputra all originate from the Himalaya.
• Few people live on the tip of the mountains, but many live on ridges and valleys.
• The highest mountain, Mt. Everest is 8848m (29,032ft), and is called Chomolungma in Tibetan and Sagarmatha in Nepali. It was named Mt. Everest when the surveyor Sir Andrew Waugh, wanted to honor his predecessor, Sir George Everest.

Some other unique facts include

• Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay first ascended Everest in 1953, but neither of them ever declared who reached the top first.
• Sir Edmund Hillary led an expedition to find the YETI way back in 1958.
• Tenzing Norgay buried his daughters red and blue pencils on Everest.
• There are only pictures of Tenzing on top and not of Hillary from that first ascent, mostly because Tenzing did not know how to handle the camera.

Know any other interesting facts? Contact us!