Chimborazo is an inactive volcano located in the Andes mountain range in Ecuador with a peak elevation of 6,268.2 meters. What makes Chimborazo so special, apart from being the highest location in Ecuador, is that its peak is the furthest point from the center of the Earth, and not Mount Everest as many would believe to be. This is due to Chimborazo’s location along the equatorial bulge of the planet.
The earth is not a perfect sphere. On account of rotation of the earth, the planet is "thicker" around the Equator than measured around the poles. Chimborazo lies one degree south of the Equator while Mt Everest is nearly nearly 28° north of the equator. Despite Chimborazo being 2,580 meter lower in elevation above sea level compared to Mt Everest (8,848 meter), it is 2.168 km farther from the Earth's center than the summit of Everest.
Chimborazo is not even the highest peak of the Andes. In fact, when ranked by the order of distance from the center of the earth, several other Andean peaks as well as Africa's highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, exceed Mt Everest.
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