Mt. Chimborazo: All the Rage on the Interweb

According to the trend watchers over at BuzzFeed, Ecuador’s Mt. Chimborazo is currently all the rage in the blogosphere. That’s because the Andean peak is technically the tallest mountain in the world due to the fact that it sits on the equator’s bulge. (That’s when you measure distance from the center of the earth, not elevation in terms of sea level, mind you; a little hill in the Himalayas that starts with an “e” and ends with “t” still holds the most famous title.) Wikipedia has all the counterintuitive deets:

So, despite being 2,581 m (8,568 ft) lower in elevation above sea level, it is 6,384.4 km (3,968 mi) from the Earth’s center, 2.1 km farther than the summit of Everest.

Got it?

Okay, okay, so maybe Chimborazito wins on a technicality, but I’m just happy to see my beloved Ecuador in the news for something other than its chronic political instability.