Mount Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa.

It stands all by itself above flat, grassy land. Its top is white with snow and ice. It is in the country of Tanzania.

Mount Kilimanjaro rises in northeastern Tanzania, near the border with Kenya, about 225 kilometers south of Nairobi. Its highest point, on the peak called Kibo, is 5,895 meters above sea level, which Britannica calls the highest point in Africa.

Kilimanjaro is not just one peak: it is a massif, a big block of mountain made of three volcanoes, Kibo in the middle, Mawenzi to the east and Shira to the west. It stretches about 80 kilometers from east to west. Standing alone, it rises almost 4,900 meters above the plains around it.

Britannica places Kilimanjaro in northeastern Tanzania near the Kenya border, about 160 km east of the East African Rift System and 225 km south of Nairobi. The massif extends about 80 km east to west. Kibo, its central cone, rises to 5,895 m, and UNESCO describes the mountain as rising 4,877 m above the surrounding plains, which lie at about 1,000 m.

UNESCO calls Kilimanjaro National Park, about 75,575 ha, the protector of the largest free-standing volcanic mass in the world and a superlative natural phenomenon for its height, form, snow cap and isolation above the savanna. The park was established in 1973 to cover the mountain above the tree line and six forest corridors, was inscribed in 1987, and was extended in 2005 to include the natural montane forest of the former Kilimanjaro Forest Reserve.

Climbing Kilimanjaro is like visiting many places at once.

At the bottom, there are farms and forests with monkeys. Higher up, giant plants grow on open moors. Near the icy top, only tiny mosses and lichens grow.

As you go up Kilimanjaro, the plants change in bands, called vegetation zones. Around the bottom is dry scrub on the plains. Then come farms on the well-watered southern slopes, then thick cloud forest. Above the forest is open moorland, then high, dry alpine desert, and finally the icy summit, with only mosses and lichens.

On the moorland grow strange giant plants: the giant lobelia and the giant groundsel. The forests are home to elephants, buffalo and eland, a kind of large antelope, as well as black-and-white colobus monkeys, blue monkeys and small antelopes called duikers, and many birds, including the rare Abbot's starling.

UNESCO identifies five main vegetation zones from base to summit: lower slopes, montane forest, heath and moorland, alpine desert and summit. Britannica describes the sequence as semiarid scrub on the surrounding plateau, cultivated and well-watered southern slopes, dense cloud forest, open moorland, alpine desert, and moss and lichen communities. The moorlands hold two notable giants, Lobelia deckenii and the giant groundsel Senecio johnstonii cottonii.

The forests shelter elephants, buffalo and eland, along with black-and-white colobus and blue monkeys, bushbuck and duikers, and a rich birdlife including the rare Abbot's starling. UNESCO notes that the mountain is very rich in mammal species, many of them endangered, though it is not inscribed for biodiversity. Pressures on elephants, buffalo and antelope and logging in the forest reserve were integrity concerns at inscription; the park is connected to Amboseli National Park, but corridors to Arusha and Tsavo National Parks have been encroached, affecting wildlife migration.

Many people live on the lower slopes of Kilimanjaro.

They grow coffee, bananas and other crops. The town of Moshi sits at the bottom of the mountain.

The Kilimanjaro region is one of Tanzania's leading coffee-growing areas. Chaga (Chagga), Pare, Kahe and Mbugu peoples live in the region, and farmers grow coffee, bananas, corn, beans, potatoes and other crops. The town of Moshi, at the southern foot of the mountain, is the main trading center and the starting point for many climbs.

German missionaries Johannes Rebmann and Johann Ludwig Krapf reached the mountain in 1848; at first people in Europe did not believe there could be snowy mountains so close to the Equator. In 1889 Hans Meyer and Ludwig Purtscheller became the first people recorded reaching the top of Kibo.

Britannica describes the Kilimanjaro region as one of Tanzania's leading producers of mild coffee, barley, wheat and sugar, with crops also including sisal, corn, beans, bananas, wattle bark, cotton, pyrethrum and potatoes. It is home to the Chaga (Chagga), Pare, Kahe and Mbugu peoples, and Moshi, at the southern foot, is the chief trading center and base for ascents.

The mountain became known to Europeans when German missionaries Johannes Rebmann and Johann Ludwig Krapf reached it in 1848, though reports of snow-capped mountains so close to the Equator were not believed for more than a decade. The Kibo summit was first reached in 1889 by the German geographer Hans Meyer and the Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller. The mountain and its forests became a game reserve early in the 20th century and a national park in 1973.