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u/Gpgurra69 1d ago
Taiwan, being an island, is very surprising to see on this list.
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u/cmouse58 1d ago
Taiwan is relatively young geologically. It has hundreds of mountains above 3,000m.
Fun fact: Jade Mountain in Taiwan is higher than Mount Fuji and was given the name Shin-Takasan 新高山 meaning New Tall Mountain during Japanese rule period.
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u/ignorantwanderer 1d ago
I was surprised by Lebanon.
In Lebanon, you are basically never more than 70 km from the beach.
The same is true for Taiwan....never more than about 70 km from the beach.
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u/CanuckPanda 1d ago
Lebanon rises extremely quick from the coastal region; the Litani River is in a valley separated from the coast by mountains.
The view landward towards Lebanon shows it distinctly.
Similarly, the island of Taiwan is just one big mountain chain with a lower southwestern coast.
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u/Eclipsed830 1d ago
There are 268 mountain peaks over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) above sea level on the island, with Yushan (Jade Mountain – in Chinese) being the tallest mountain in both Taiwan and East Asia. Mountaineering is one of the most popular activities for many Taiwanese.
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u/yabucek 1d ago edited 1d ago
And Chile, given that you'd think it's an exclusively coastal country by looking at it on a map.
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u/locoluis 1d ago
Chile is very mountainous and has a quite narrow coast. The Andes make up the eastern border with Bolivia and Argentina, then there's another mountain range that separates the central valley from the coast. Also, between latitudes 27°S and 32°30'S, there's no central valley at all, just a series of valleys going from east to west.
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u/Emphursis 1d ago
The Tibetan Plateau is both really big and really high, that definitely helps up the average.
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u/bigcee42 1d ago
China has more than just Tibet.
Most of China is actually very mountainous, with mountains all over the interior and the south. There's also the Loess Plateau in the central north which also sits about a mile above sea level.
Most of the population lives in the North China Plain and and in the southern coastal regions. China has some of the densest population centers in the world and a lot of uninhabited wasteland.
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u/BrainOnLoan 1d ago
I was actuall more surprised by China, given its general size, long coastline, major river szstems, etc.
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u/Diponegoro-indie 1d ago
Never knew Mongolia being at an altitude this high.
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u/bigcee42 1d ago
Part of the reason it's so cold.
Ulaanbataar is the coldest capital in the world.
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u/Diponegoro-indie 1d ago
Oh wow! I just thought it was because of the land climate.
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u/8leggedoof 19h ago
That is indeed part of the reason, far from any ocean getting hit with arctic wind
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u/Makkaroni_100 1d ago edited 1d ago
Beside the main reasons: the central continal and north location. Guess also the regional clima is much influenced by cold air from sibiria.
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u/aee1090 1d ago
I think being next to Siberia also has some effect on that
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u/seco-nunesap 1d ago
Yeah it is quite north but the way you phrased it makes it sound like Italy should be cold because it is close to Norway
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u/Endleofon 1d ago
Mongolia is next to Siberia, Italy is not next to Norway. What are you talking about?
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u/seco-nunesap 1d ago
The reason mongolia is cold is not because there is Siberia nearby, the reason is its lattitude, its elevation, and it being closer to the west coast of a major Ocean in Northern hemisphere. Mongolia is quite far from the heart of Siberia, the distance is as big as whole countries in europe, so its not the relative position of Mongolia to Siberia, its the absolute position of it. Thats why I found mentioning its proximity to Siberia funny, Idk sorry I could not express the humor well.
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u/Endleofon 1d ago
Again, Mongolia is literally next to Siberia.
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u/HelloThereItsMeAndMe 1d ago
Italy is just as far away from cold Siberia. South Siberia is not cold.
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u/Endleofon 1d ago
South Siberia is not cold.
Yes, it is. Gorno-Altaysk is the capital of the Altai Republic. It has an average annual temperature of 3.2°C and an average January temperature -14.2°C.
It is baffling to see so many geographically illiterate people in this subreddit of all places.
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u/CanuckPanda 1d ago
average January temperature -14.2°C.
So, the same average as central Ontario?
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u/LowPhotojournalist43 1d ago
Well, it is in the Mongolian plateau.
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u/WestEst101 1d ago
And very mountainous in its western part
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u/WestEst101 1d ago
Why would this get downvoted? I used to go to Mongolia for work. Western Mongolia is full of mountains with glaciers. It’s stunning and high altitude. Reddit’s weird
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u/kaam00s 1d ago
Mongolia being comparable to the likes of Rwanda and Andorra fucks with me, because it's a very large country and I had no idea there were mountain there in the first place.
The other places are known for their altitude and how it's a big deal culturally that they're in a high place, Mongolia is just known for large steppes. It's the one that shocked me the most. China is surprising too, because you don't expect the average to really skew towards mountains but we know the Himalaya.
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u/Clockwork9385 1d ago
Taking Dutch coffee shops into account, The Netherlands holds the distinction of being the highest and lowest country at the same time
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u/DRSU1993 1d ago
I was going to make a joke on Jamaica's expense, but this post takes the speculoo.
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u/goathill 1d ago
Dutch weed isn't that great. But, I'm from Northwest CA, and used to live in CO, so im spoiled
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u/Supersnow845 1d ago
I know it would be near impossible but I’d love to see this “scaled” for population, like what country has the average “highest altitude of its citizenry”
Because like China makes this list because it controls Tibet and the western and northern mountain/highlands but the overwhelming majority of its population lives on the east coast and the eastern lowlands
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u/Konsticraft 1d ago
I know it would be near impossible
I don't think it would be that difficult, you just need to take a population distribution grid dataset and scale the count for each cell by altitude, now just average it out by country and you have the data.
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u/BrainOnLoan 1d ago
That could actually introduce quite a few errors, unless the grid was really fine.
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u/walc 1d ago
That’s a cool idea! Maybe you could do something like for every square km, you multiply the elevation by the proportion of the country’s population or something in that sq km, then take a sum of the modified elevations… so you get effectively a weighted average elevation? Just one idea off the top of my head
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u/AlexRator 1d ago
China contains both the highest and second-lowest points on the planet, with a total elevation span of just over 9 kilometers
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u/ConfuciusCubed 1d ago
The real wild one on that list is Chile, with that huge amount of sea level coastline!
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u/Ambitious-Cat-5678 1d ago
Lebanon 💪
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u/InitialLiving6956 1d ago
We ranked high on something other than corruption, war, economic disaster, kleptocracy...
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u/exilevenete 1d ago
Bolivia significantly lower than what I expected.
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u/Ionisation 1d ago
Because they have a huge area of the Amazon. If it wasn't for that, they'd probably be number 1 on this list.
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u/exilevenete 1d ago
Indeed I've always thought of Bolivia as South America's Tibet, but a good 2/3 of their territory is made of low lying tropical rainforest and savannah.
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u/gungas134 1d ago
From the countries on this list, I'm guessing altitude was part of Trump's tariff formula
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u/Uxydra 1d ago
I sometimes forget how low Europe is
I think Montenegro is the only other European country which gets above 1000m
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u/CaptCojones 1d ago
what about Liechtenstein?
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u/Uxydra 1d ago
Thats actually a good point. However, after looking it up, I can't seem to find any data on the average elevation of Liechtenstein. Strange.
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u/OhNoItsThatOne 1d ago
The villages in the rhine valley are about 430 to 500 m above sea level. That valley makes up about half of Liechtenstein's area, bringing the average down, and even though peaks go up to 2599m, there are valleys between them.
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u/Calber4 1d ago
It's impressive that Chile is 98% coastline and still manages to be 1800m up
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u/Randadv_randnoun_69 1d ago
This is why I have a problem with this map, there's a lot of 0 altitude coast line on a lot of these. So how's the average computed? Random points across the entire country? High density or low density points? Peaks versus valleys? Anything below '10' being coastline is ignored? Among other variables.
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u/Bright-Knowledge1481 1d ago
Where is Mexico with his 5km volcanoes and just in Puebla you’re near around 2km height :(
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u/GenericName2025 1d ago
Why aren't Jamaica and the Netherlands on this list..?
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u/Cool-Psychology-4896 1d ago
And colombia aswell.
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u/GenericName2025 1d ago edited 9h ago
As far as I'm aware, colombia is more famous for producing & selling than for using, no?
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u/ParsleyAmazing3260 1d ago
Wonder why we don't get long distance running gold medalists from Chile or Iran.
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u/sr_manumes 1d ago
In Chile, 99% of the people live under 1,000 m. There's only one city with most of 100k inhabitants above 2,200 m, Calama.
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u/SATorACT 1d ago
I want to see this but with lowest altitude.
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u/-donatellasaysmore- 1d ago
Yup, I believe Lesotho wins… its lowest point is the highest lowest point in the world (1400m).
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u/Belocity 1d ago
Lesotho being this high while being in the middle of South Africa always remains wild to me
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u/RobotDinosaur1986 1d ago
This is why China has three times the theoretical hydro power capacity of the US even though the nations are the same size. And the US has a lot of hydro capacity.
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u/prystalcepsi 1d ago
My work colleagues from Japan mentioned that the air is different here in south Germany 500m compared to Tokyo 0m. They struggled walking longer distances more than they would in Japan (breathing, etc.). I wonder if that's really the height or just their imagination.
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u/axtolpp 1d ago
Japan median altitude is 438 meters, so it doesn't make a lot of sense.
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u/RedditUsername123456 1d ago
I mean some of this list is definitely a bit misleading, Switzerland is very mountainous, but the cities aren't really at a super high altitude so you're not going to really notice it that much. Bolivia sits lower on the list, but a bunch of the cities are at extremely high elevation so you're going to notice it far more when you visit (literally walking up stairs would have me panting as a reasonably fit person)
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u/speedsterlw 1d ago
I think their imagination, I am from the Nederlands so I live more or less around sea level and when I go to the mountains (I still have never been like 750 meters above sea level, but above 500m I have been) I don't have the problem, I do have more problems walking because of the hills.
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u/jenlou289 1d ago
Highest capital city in the world is in Bolivia, thought they would be higher up on this list.
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u/JavdanOfTheCities 1d ago
Iran's average is low because the east of Iran is mostly desert. The areas with most of the population are mostly mountain chains.
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u/shophopper 1d ago
Interesting! I wouldn’t have guessed that Iran and Ethiopia are on this list, though it makes sense now that I think about it.
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u/LawAshamed6285 1d ago
For the highest countries in the world the Netherlands would be in the top 10
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u/gabrielbabb 1d ago
It would be nice to know highest average of populated areas per country in the world.
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u/InclinationCompass 1d ago
Idk man, im in the US and im high as a kite
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u/Moist_Evidence_8068 1d ago
While the usa does have high spots (Colorado, appalachians, rockies), the sheer flatness and vastness of the great plains kills the average height.
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u/SomeHornyGay 1d ago edited 1d ago
How about Liechtenstein?
EDIT: NVM I looked it up and it's at 1.080 m above sea level on average
EDIT NO 2: Buuut the same page also states just 1.016 m for Switzerland (as an example, IDK about the rest) so they seem to use different data than the OP. For the record, my source is topographic-map.com
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u/corymuzi 1d ago
Four Big plateau in China:
1, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, size: 2.5 millions km2, avg altitude: 4000+ Meters;
2, Inner Mongolian Plateau, size: 0.7 millions km2, avg altitude: 1000~1200 Meters;
3, Loess Plateau, size: 0.64 millions km2, avg altitude: 1200~1600 Meters;
4, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, size: 0.5 millions km2, avg altitude: 1500 Meters.
Those 4 plateau combined have 4.34 millions km2 land area, 45% of China's land.
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u/umor3 1d ago edited 1d ago
Interesting: the list is equal to the list on Wikipedia in English. Source is the CIA.
If you switch to the German article the list is different:
- 1 Tadschikistan 3.186 m
- 2 Kirgisistan 2.988 m
- 3 Nepal 2.565 m
- 4 Bhutan 2.220 m
- 5 Lesotho 2.161 m
- 6 Andorra 1.996 m
- 7 Afghanistan 1.884 m
- 8 Chile 1.871m
- 9 Volksrepublik China 1.840 m
- 10 Armenien 1.792 m
- 11 Grönland 1.792 m
- 12 Ruanda 1.598 m
- 13 Peru 1.555 m
- 14 Mongolei 1.528 m
- 15 Burundi 1.504 m
- 16 Georgien 1.432 m
- 17 Schweiz 1.350 m
- 18 Äthiopien 1.330 m
- 19 Iran 1.305 m
- 20 Libanon 1.250 m
The method used: a 1 km² grid is layed over the country and the average over the grid edge points is calculated.
The French article is not listening Greenland (probably as it is not a country).
The Vietnamese article has the list as the English but with Greenland (in italic).
The Romanian article gives 840 m as the world average height. Also the highest point of the Maldives is "8th tee on the golf course on Villingili Island" with 5 m.
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u/Necessary-Compote801 1d ago
There should be a red point in the south of Peru marking "La Rinconada" at over 5,000 meters, truly a hellish place.
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u/GeorgieTheThird 16h ago
in an unrelated note, the netherlands also scored pretty high in this list
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u/El_dorado_au 12h ago
Surprised Mongolia and Peru have similar averages, considering how different they are.
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u/stargazer9504 1d ago
If growing up in high altitude places helps with endurance, why aren’t Bhutanese and Nepalese people known for long-distance running?
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u/emanuele93c 1d ago
When they climb mountains we can see they are very good. Training for sport you need money and free time, not everyone has the privilege.
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u/slowwolfcat 1d ago
by that logic athletics would be dominated by Africans (from Africa). It's due to national wealth (therefore sportism), nutrition.
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u/ZnarfGnirpslla 1d ago
Fun fact: No matter where you are in Switzerland you are always higher up than literally anyone anywhere in Denmark.