# How high is a mountain ?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 2, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031 "2003-04-02T19:47:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2003, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/1 "2003-04-02T19:47:42Z")
When I was visiting Lanarkshire in Scotland many years ago, I went up a mountain called Tinto. It is said (or so I was told at the time) that any height above Tinto (about 2300 ft) is called a mountain and anything below that height is called a hill.
Now this may be complete tosh, a local saying, or totally true (perhaps only in Scotland) but it got me thinking about when a hill becomes a mountain.
I’ve done a lot of hill/mountain walking and I always thought the Hugh Grant film ‘The guy who went up a hill and came down a mountain’ and its 1000ft limit was total BS. I wait to be convinced otherwise.
I guess it depends which country you are in.
Any low mountains and high hills out there ?
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### Author:  [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2003, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/2 "2003-04-02T19:50:53Z")
Merriam-Webster sez:
mountain
1 a : a landmass that projects conspicuously above its surroundings and is higher than a hill b : an elongated ridge
hill
1 : a usually rounded natural elevation of land lower than a mountain
I think mountains become hills when they lose their pointy tops. That must be it.
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### Author:  [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/3 "2003-04-02T19:57:27Z")
[This guy](http://geography.about.com/library/faq/blqzmtnheight.htm) says he knows.
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### Author:  [@Yossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yossarian)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2003, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/4 "2003-04-02T21:08:51Z")
I’ll look for the cite, but in an older–but peer-reviewed–article I recently read it was stated that a “Mountain” requires 2000 feet of _local relief_ (as opposed to absolute elevation above sea level).
However, as a Geologist I just shrug and say “that’s something to let the Geographers fight about.”
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### Author:  [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2003, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/5 "2003-04-03T04:00:02Z")
I’ve never heard that before **pravnik** , I wonder where his designation comes from ? The Ordnance survey perhaps.
I dont think the pointyness of the top should make a difference **Ethilrist** , I know many mountains that arent ‘pointy’.
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### Author:  [@ChalkPit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChalkPit)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2003, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/6 "2003-04-03T04:01:26Z")
2000ft or thereabouts seems to be the time one changes to the other.
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### Author:  [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2003, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/7 "2003-04-03T04:20:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Ethilrist \*
> I think mountains become hills when they lose their pointy tops. That must be it.
So I no longer live on a mountain, eh?
😃
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### Author:  [@prow\_er](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/prow_er)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2003, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/8 "2003-04-03T04:28:39Z")
hmm…isn’t there a _technical_ definition…a mountain is a mountain if it’s 500 metres above sea level, whether its flat or pointed.
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### Author:  [@sciguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciguy)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2003, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-high-is-a-mountain/166031/9 "2003-04-03T05:41:52Z")
I’d have to throw in my observation that any definition would have to require measurement from the base, not sea level (as **Pantellerite’s** comment and **pravnik’s** link indicated). By **prow|er’s** proposed definition, my parking lot is a mountain.
← see location, aka “The mile (1.6 km) high city”.
Of course, if pointy tops at 5200 feet qualifies something as a mountain, I have a new nick-name for a couple of managers at work 🙂