Mountains, mesas, buttes, hills, highlands, peaks, and prominences all describe an elevated landscape. These terms have both specific and general meanings and can even vary depending on where they’re being used. Within the Lake District National Park of northern England, the mountains there—carved by glaciers thousands of years ago—are also known as “fells.”
Each mountain, or fell, in the Lake District is unique. And thanks to Heather Smith, a cartographer with Esri, you can explore them in detail. Using the Database of British and Irish Hills, Smith created an interactive map of fells in the region. Each fell is shown using triangles that vary in size and color. The size of each triangle depicts the height of each mountain—larger symbols correspond to taller fells. The prominence, or the height of the fell’s peak relative to its closest low point, is shown in increasingly darker shades of green.
Geographers use concepts like prominence to describe the topography of landscapes, which have many distinct features that aren’t as obvious as they may seem. For instance, it is commonly said that Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth. But that’s only true when considering height from sea level. If instead we measure the total height from a mountain’s base—which may be below sea level—then Hawaii’s Mauna Kea is Earth’s tallest mountain. The interactive version of Smith’s map allows you to explore each fell, see photos, and retrieve the specific height and prominence of all 991 peaks.
When it comes to Earth’s landscape, there is always more than meets the eye. And maps like this can help us see, and learn, something new.
