United States P2000s Home Page

US
P2000s
HOMEPAGE

UNITED STATES P2000 HOME PAGE

A summary of the high-prominence mountains and hills in the United States

including all P2000 summits (Mountains with 2,000 feet or greater of prominence)
and the completion status of deep lists for the various states.

last updated: December 10, 2007

PROMINENCE THRESHOLDS

For a general introduction to prominence, please refer to the peaklist.org homepage or the 2003 article on prominence theory.

The United States (lower 49) were completely mapped in 2004 to the level of 2000 foot prominence. This data set of mountain summits, 1,214 peaks by the interpolated prominence rule, is commonly referred to as the P2000s. Some effort has been made to refer to these summits (2000 feet in the US, 600 meters/1968 feet in the metric world) as the Majors.

Ongoing work to build deeper datasets for all of the hills in the US continues, mainly spearheaded by a few individuals who do this work as a hobby.

Any list of summits by prominence for a given region ultimately must adopt a minimum cutoff value. As a general convention there are five standard cutoffs used to compile prominence datasets. 5000', 2000', 1000', 500', and 300' are the standard for lists in imperial units. As a result of this standardization, lists of hills can be compared across regions, resulting in a measure of 'peakiness'.

THE P2000s

To familiarize yourself with this dataset, you can look at the various lists for the US available on this website (links are below, or from the main lists page. ) You can also reference the prominence maps that completed for the 11 western states plus the Eastern U.S., (map links below.)   A parallel reference for the dataset can be found on the listsofjohn website, which allows users to track the peaks that they have summited. Another good resource are the cell maps for various western states, based on a concept that I developed, and hosted on the cohp.org website, which has numerous prominence resources.

Under the "clean method" (see note below") there are a total of 1,238 summits in the Lower 48 with 2,000' or greater prominence, including the "error range" peaks.   93% of these (1,151) are in the 12 western states.   The Eastern U.S. boasts 81 of the P2000 summits.   The Central U.S. has two P2000 summits.

The P2000 lists on peaklist.org are being revised and resorted by "interpolated prominence", meaning the expected prominence based on the midpoint of contour intervals where no spot elevation is given. Under the older "clean prominence" method, where every hill with a possibility of achieving 2000' of prominence was included, there are a total of 1,238 summits.   Under the new rule, there are 1,214 summits on the list.

Credit for the massive undertaking of P2000 hills is shared amongst numerous researchers. Citations of the list should reference Edward Earl, Aaron Maizlish, and Andy Martin et al. Other map readers who contributed their effort include Jerry Brekhus (for Montana), Jeff Howbert and John Roper (for Washington), Roy Schweiker (Northeast), and Ron Tagliapietra (Southeast).

Clean Prominence	1194	+44
Mean Prominence	1214	+24

DEEP LISTS

How many hills are there in the United States? Absurd as that question may seem, we may be able to answer that question assuredly in the next few years. A number of researchers continue to map states to either 500' cutoff or 300' cutoff in their spare time. John Kirk has built massive datasets for the intermountain states. Aaron Maizlish (myself) has done California, Nevada, and the Northeast. Jerry Brekhus has taken on the heartland, and Ryan Richardson continues his work on the Mid-Atlantic.

Two years ago I wrote that I doubt that the U.S. would ever be completely mapped to the most detailed level. Now I think it is likely.

It is always surprising, when looking at these large datasets, how different the promience distribution curves look in different physiographical regions. Notably the ratio of P5000s to P2000s is widely different in different parts of the world. As the work in the U.S. fills in, we can start to give some rough numbers for the trend. Roughly speaking there are about 5 P1000s for every 1 P2000. There average 4 P500s for every 1 P1000 (21 P500s per P2000). There are about 2.5 P300s for every P500. That makes 50 P300s per P2000.

Based on these ratios, we can estimate that there will be 65,000 to 70,000 hills in the 48 United States; defined as all summits that acheive 300' of prominence.

Anyone interested in hiking or researching further on these lists is encouraged to contact the various list authors directly. All of these lists exist on the internet, and can be found from links on this page. Also, several hikers are actively peakbagging P2000s in the U.S. If you are actively peakbagging, and wish to keep track of your progress, please contact frontrunner list maintainer Andy Martin at andyadit(at)aol.com.

WESTERN UNITED STATES
STATE (Link is to P2000 list)	MAPS	P300s	P500s	P1000s	P2000s (Majors)	P5000s (Ultras)	NOTES
ARIZONA	MAP			427	73	5	1K list
CALIFORNIA	MAP		4106	972	167	9	see Intro Page to California Mountain Atlas
COLORADO	MAP	4353	1759	425	81	3	hosted on listsofjohn.com or Ryan Schilling's website
HAWAII					11	6
IDAHO	MAP				98	3	research by John Kirk is in progress
MONTANA	MAP	5876	2668	745	146*	4	hosted on listsofjohn.com
NEVADA	MAP		2536	647	172	8	Nevada Mountain Atlas on peaklist.org
NEW MEXICO	MAP	3136	1065	220	47	1	hosted on listsofjohn.com
OREGON	MAP				74	4
TEXAS					12	0
UTAH	MAP	4343	1581	359	82	8	hosted on listsofjohn.com
WASHINGTON	MAP			560	148	7	see Jeff Howbert's website (has most of WA to 400')
WYOMING	MAP	3069	1189	263	35	3	hosted on listsofjohn.com
EASTERN UNITED STATES
STATE (Link is to the deepest list)	MAP	P300s	P500s	P1000s	P2000s (Majors)	P5000s (Ultras)	NOTES
NEW ENGLAND & NEW YORK	MAP
SOUTHEASTERN U.S.	MAP

ALABAMA					0
CONNECTICUT	MAP	99	19	0	0
GEORGIA					1
KENTUCKY				7	0
MAINE		1322	495	99	16		Contact webmaster for draft list
MARYLAND	MAP		21	2	0
MASSACHUSETTS	MAP (E) MAP (W)	155	37	3	1
NEW HAMPSHIRE		634	270	70	12	1	Contact webmaster for draft list
NEW JERSEY	MAP	55	12	0	0
NEW YORK				100	14		Contact Roy Schweiker for draft list
NORTH CAROLINA					10	1
RHODE ISLAND		1	0	0	0		on Connecticut list
SOUTH CAROLINA			31	1	0		Contact Ron Tagliapietra for draft list
TENNESSEE				50	6
PENNSYLVANIA	MAP			21	0		research by Aaron Maizlish is in progress
VERMONT		714	281	69	13		Contact webmaster for draft list
VIRGINIA				100	6
WEST VIRGINIA			359	44	1
These Eastern states have NO P300 or greater summits: Delaware, Florida
CENTRAL UNITED STATES
STATE (Link to P500 list)	MAP	P300s	P500s	P1000s	P2000s (Majors)	P5000s (Ultras)	NOTES
ARKANSAS			81	14	1		Magazine Mtn.
ILLINOIS			1	0	0
MICHIGAN			15	1	0
MINNESOTA			3	1	0
MISSOURI			11	0	0
NEBRASKA			1	0	0
NORTH DAKOTA			8	0	0
OHIO			3	0	0
OKLAHOMA			46	8	0
SOUTH DAKOTA			35	4	1		Harney Peak
WISCONSIN			6	0	0
The following states have NO summits of P500 or greater: Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi

* add two peaks that are on the Idaho/Montana border but included with the Idaho count for a Montana total of 148.