I ranked the world's greatest mountain ranges

The Himalayas are the tallest mountains on Earth. That doesn't make them the best. Ten of the world's great mountain ranges, ranked on what they do for the world around them: the Wall, the Water, the Weather and the Wealth, each scored from one to five. Dedicated to Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary, the first people confirmed to stand on top of Mount Everest, on 29 May 1953, and to all the mountaineers who've risked everything to stand on top of the world. 0:00 The intro 0:34 For Tenzing and Hillary 0:54 The rules 2:55 The Great Dividing Range 5:04 The Himalayas 7:12 The Zagros 9:39 The Caucasus 12:17 The Urals 14:21 The Alps 16:34 The Atlas 18:49 The Appalachians 21:37 The Rockies 24:01 The Andes 27:01 The final board Key sources Water: Immerzeel et al., "Importance and vulnerability of the world's water towers", Nature (2020); ICIMOD (Himalayan river basins) Weather: Boos and Kuang, Nature (2010) (the Himalayas and the monsoon) Wealth: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 (copper, lithium, phosphate); US Energy Information Administration (Appalachian gas) Credits Pangaea: plate model by Müller et al. (2019), Tectonics; EarthByte Group, University of Sydney, via GPlates (CC BY 3.0). Rain: contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026 (ERA5); NOAA CMORPH. Satellite imagery: Google; ©2026 Airbus, CNES / Airbus, Landsat / Copernicus, Maxar Technologies, Vexcel Imaging, USDA/FPAC/GEO, Geoimage Austria, Salzburg AG. Elevation: Terrain Tiles (Tilezen), with data from USGS (SRTM, GMTED2010), NOAA (ETOPO1), Copernicus (EU-DEM) and national mapping agencies. Full attribution: github.com/tilezen/joerd/blob/master/docs/attribution.md Maps: Natural Earth.