Mount Kilimanjaro

Mount Kilimanjaro is a volcanic massif in northeastern Tanzania, near the border with Kenya and about 140 miles (225 km) south of Nairobi. Its central cone, Kibo, rises to 19,340 feet (5,895 metres) and is the highest point in Africa. The massif extends roughly 50 miles (80 km) east to west and consists of three principal extinct volcanoes: Kibo in the centre, Mawensi to the east, and Shira to the west.

Kilimanjaro's mass is built from three distinct cones. Shira, the oldest, collapsed to form a plateau and stands at an altitude of 3,962 m on the broad WNW shoulder of the complex, its activity beginning during the Pliocene. Mawenzi, an extensively dissected Pleistocene peak with a sharp top, rises on the ESE flank. The central edifice is Kibo, whose summit crater and flank cones represent the most recent phase of volcanism at the mountain.

The age of Kilimanjaro's youngest volcanic material is 165,000 plus or minus 5,000 years before present. K-Ar dating placed the most recent volcanism, including formation of the present summit crater and flank cones, around 150-200 ka.

The name Kilimanjaro is said to combine the Swahili word Kilima, meaning mountain, with the KiChagga word Njaro, loosely translated as whiteness, giving the name White Mountain. The mountain is sacred to the local Chagga people, who revere it as a source of life and fertility.

• 1888 and 1889
  Hans Meyer's expeditions
  At the time of Hans Meyer's expeditions in 1888 and 1889 the summit of Kibo was completely enveloped by an ice cap whose outlet glaciers cascaded in an unbroken arc across the western and southern slopes.^{6Satellite Image Atlas of Glaciers of the World — Glaciers of the Middle East and Africa (Professional Paper 1386-G) · U.S. Geological Survey ↗}
• 1889
  First ascent of the Kibo summit
  The Kibo summit was first reached in 1889 by the German geographer Hans Meyer and the Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller.^{1Kilimanjaro | Height, Map, Country, & Facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}
• 4 January 2006
  Rockfall at the Western Breach
  A rockfall on 4 January 2006 at the Western Breach took three climbers' lives and injured five others, prompting improvements to the route to minimize rockfall risk.^{3Kilimanjaro — Volcano Profile · Smithsonian Institution, Global Volcanism Program ↗}

Kilimanjaro National Park was established in 1973. In 1987 the property was inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO under criterion (vii). The park is connected to Amboseli National Park, but corridors to Arusha National Park and Tsavo National Park have been encroached, impacting on wildlife migration.

Within the park, single-use plastic is banned, weigh-ins ensure that porters are not overloaded, and rubbish is also weighed to deter littering.

The mountain is climbed through five main vegetation zones, from lowest to highest: the lower slopes, the montane forest, the heath and moorland, the alpine desert, and the summit. The montane forests are lush cloud forest, with orchids and hidden streams, while the moorland and alpine desert zones are dotted with giant lobelias and senecios. Above 4,000 m a surreal alpine desert supports little life other than a few hardy mosses and lichen, before the last vegetation gives way to ice and snow. The trek likewise ascends through five corresponding climate zones, from bushland and rainforest to an icy arctic landscape at the top.

The forests of the southern slopes and the surrounding areas are home to elephants, buffalo, and eland, while smaller mammals include black and white colobus monkeys, blue monkeys, bushbuck, and duikers. The whole mountain, including the montane forest belt, is very rich in species, in particular mammals, many of them endangered. Below the national park boundary at the 2,700 m contour, cultivated footslopes give way to lush montane forest inhabited by elusive leopard and the endangered Abbot's duiker.

The present glacier ice on Kilimanjaro represents isolated remnants of a more extensive ice cap on Kibo, from which outlet glaciers extended hundreds of meters farther downslope in the late 1800s. Rising air temperatures due to global warming could be contributing to the ice loss, but an increasingly dry regional atmosphere starves the mountain of the fresh snow needed to sustain the ice fields.

Glacier area stood at 20.0 km2 in 1880 according to the USGS Earthshots record, and had fallen to 11.40 km2 by 1912. By 2011 the glacier area was 1.76 km2, a loss of about 85% since 1912.

Linear extrapolation of the retreat implies the ice cover on the western slopes of Kilimanjaro will be gone before 2020, while the remaining ice bodies on the plateau and southern slopes will most likely disappear by 2040 in the study's extrapolation.

The park offers six usual trekking routes to the summit plus other more-demanding mountaineering routes, day or overnight hikes on the Shira plateau, nature trails on the lower reaches and trout fishing. The Marangu route is the busiest and the only route with huts, reachable from Moshi with one of the shortest climbs, while the longer Machame enables slower acclimatisation and the even longer Lemosho is quieter and has the best views.

Altitude sickness is the main risk on Kilimanjaro and the leading cause of death on the mountain, with symptoms above 2,500 metres ranging from headaches and nausea to potentially fatal pulmonary or cerebral oedemas.

Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest mountain at 19,340ft, one of the Seven Summits and the world's highest standalone mountain, attracting more than 30,000 climbers annually. International adult entry fees for Kilimanjaro National Park are listed at $70 for adults and $20 for children, with East African residents paying TZS 20,000 per person.

The snow-clad dome of Kibo contains a caldera on its southern side, with an inner cone that displays residual volcanic activity^{1Kilimanjaro | Height, Map, Country, & Facts · Encyclopaedia Britannica ↗}. The park was opened for tourism in 1977 and was named a Natural Wonder of Africa in 2013 by the awards programme^{4About Kilimanjaro National Park · Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA) ↗}.