How tall is mount mckinley and where is it located

According to the Department of Interior, a federal law gave Secretary Sally Jewell the authority to change geographic names through the U. Board on Geographic Names. Denali is about miles km southwest of Fairbanks and about miles km north-northwest of Anchorage. It is part of the Alaska Range and the centerpiece of Denali National Park, which covers six million acres 24, square km of land. While it has long been believed that the Alaska Range, which spans much of south-central Alaska, was formed by tectonic activity, it has remained a mystery until recently because it is more than miles kilometers from Alaska's southern coast, the closest source of mountain-building activity.

A 3D computer model project shed some light on how the low angles and unusual bent in a geological fault further inland combined to form the mountain range.

There is a distinction between measuring "highest" and "tallest. The tallest mountain is measured from base to summit. Using that measurement, Denali is taller than Mount Everest. Denali rises about 18, feet 5, meters from its base, which is a greater vertical rise than Everest's 12,foot rise 3, meters from its base at 17, feet 5, meters. The national park that serves as the home for the mountain was established in as Mount McKinley National Park.

In the name of the park was changed to Denali National Park and Preserve. The official name of the mountain, though, remains Mount McKinley. Denali National Park is home to nearly 12, lakes. Glaciers cover around one-sixth of the park, which covers roughly one million acres. On January 13th, , hunter-naturalist Charles Sheldon made an appeal to Thomas Riggs of the Alaska Engineering Commission regarding the naming of the park and its crown jewel:.

Sheldon, Browne, and Riggs were part of a team that was drafting legislation to establish a national park protecting wildlife. They were also concerned about preserving for the mountain a Native name which increasingly was being dismissed or completely ignored by American mapmakers, and in other publications.

It is not descriptive. Everybody in the United States knows of Mt. McKinley and the various efforts made to climb it. In consequence, both Mr.

Yard and I think that the name McKinley should stick. It proved difficult to supplant words and meanings that endured for generations among Athabaskan groups living in close proximity to the mountain. In , the name controversy reemerged when the State of Alaska petitioned the U.

McKinley' was officially re-named Denali in , Alaskans have always referred to the mountain as 'Denali' -- the Athabascan word meaning 'The Great One'. Located in the Alaska Range, its peak reaches a glorious 20, feet high, making it Alaska's greatest boast. Denali is the highest mountain in the United States and most consider it to be the second highest on earth.