Sources: 

Data Sources:  This page represents years of compilation by the authors from a variety of sources including direct communication with researchers and from published material, principally 1) various mountaineering literature, 2) Soviet topographic mapping at 1:100,000 and 1:200,000,  3) extensive analysis of SRTM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) digital elevation data, 4) names and elevations in publications by the China Mountaineering Association and in the geonames database, 5) Chinese Snow Mountain topographic map series, and 6) both commercial and national topographic surveys including the recent Finnish survey of Nepal where applicable.  We have striven to sort through extremely divergent elevation values and toponymy in order to provide a list that best reflects accurate and supportable data.  Notably, we have analyzed all published values against SRTM for reasonableness, and in many cases propose here for the first time, elevation estimates that we believe are more accurate than old survey values.

Names:  We have not been able to determine reliable placenames for a significant number of summits in China.  The tradition in Tibet and China is to give a name to an entire mountain range, and many of the less-famous peaks do not have well-known local names apart from that of their range.  Names in quotation marks are working names for unnamed summits (mostly in the Eastern Karakoram) from an unpublished 1984 study.  Names in capitals are those that we transliterated directly from the cyrillic on the Russian topographic maps, and have not thus far confirm their accuracy or pinyin spelling.  In addition, 28 peaks in China are name unknown, where we feel that the name of the larger range is not descriptive enough.  Submissions of names are welcome.

Saddle and prominence values are derived almost exclusively from SRTM data, with some reliance on Soviet mapping.  It is generally felt that these values are accurate to ±20 meters.

FOOTNOTES

[2] Altun Shan:  The official altitude of 5798m in the CMG was overruled by SRTM, which indicates that it is higher.

[16]  Lian Hua Feng:  According to Wikipedia, this holy mountain is the high point of the Huang Shan.  Another source puts nearby Guangming Ding as higher, but we believe this is in error.

[18] Official Chinese name, Yushu Feng, added 3/26/2011.

[38] If Qaidam Shan is 5759m then it is an ultra, but SRTM suggests it’s a bit lower and probably doesn't make it.

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