Mountains form the backbones of continents, and the highest point on Earth is Mount Everest in the Himalayas, reaching 8,849 meters above sea level on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Other continent-leading peaks include Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania at 5,895 meters—Africa's tallest and the highest free-standing mountain in the world—Denali in Alaska at 6,190 meters, with the largest base-to-peak rise of any mountain on Earth, and Aconcagua in Argentina at 6,961 meters, the tallest in the Western and Southern Hemispheres. In Europe, Mount Elbrus in Russia stands at 5,642 meters, while Mont Blanc at 4,809 meters is the highest if only Western Europe is considered.
Mountain ranges shape entire regions. The Andes in South America are the longest continental mountain range, extending about 7,000 kilometers along the western coast from Venezuela to southern Chile. The Himalayas stretch about 2,400 kilometers across five countries—India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, and Pakistan—and contain 10 of the world's 14 peaks above 8,000 meters. The Alps are the highest and most extensive range in Europe, running about 1,200 kilometers across eight countries, with Mont Blanc as their highest peak.
Deserts cover vast stretches of every continent except Europe. The Antarctic Polar Desert is the largest by area at about 14.2 million square kilometers, but among hot deserts the Sahara reigns, covering about 9.2 million square kilometers across North Africa—roughly the size of the United States—and spanning 11 countries. The Gobi Desert in northern China and southern Mongolia, at about 1.3 million square kilometers, is a cold desert with extreme temperature swings. The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest non-polar desert on Earth, with some weather stations there having never recorded rainfall—conditions that also make it one of the world's premier sites for astronomical observatories.