Nature · Ethiopian Highlands · bounded summit-area section
Ras Dashen: terrain elevation and local relief
Ras Dashen uses an approximately 4,524-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 1,503 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
≈ 4,524 m
Data-derived estimate- Measurement
- Highest sampled surface in the documented Copernicus terrain section · EGM2008
- Subject or version
- Ethiopian Highlands · bounded summit-area section
- In feet, rounded
- 14,841.7 ft (1 ft = 0.3048 m)
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Terrain boundary, base and datum
- Vertical reference
- EGM2008. Published surveys are separate; no datum conversion is applied.
- Highest sampled surface
- 4523.8 m at 13.236111°, 38.368333°.
- Local base
- 3020.3 m at 13.268333°, 38.322222°. Lowest sampled point within this bounded terrain section.
- Section bounds in WGS84-G1150
- West 38.321528°, east 38.422917°; south 13.205139°, north 13.268472°.
- View and scale
- Orthographic map section facing north. Equal horizontal and vertical map scales. Approximate grid spacing: 30.1 m east-west and 30.7 m north-south. Lower and surrounding terrain omitted.
produced using Copernicus WorldDEM-30 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved
A little more perspective
NASA Earth Observatory’s July 2021 Ethiopian Highlands article gives Ras Dashen as 4,533 meters above sea level. Its accompanying feet figure is not an exact conversion, so this record retains the stated meter value. The bounded Copernicus section reaches about 4,524 meters in EGM2008. It shows a small part of the surrounding highland terrain, without importing the elevation of the regional plateau as a universal mountain base.
The local-relief view subtracts the lowest sampled point in this section: 3020.3 meters at 13.268333° latitude, 38.322222° longitude. This produces about 1,503 meters of relief within the stated boundary. It is not a universal mountain base, a route’s total ascent, or topographic prominence.
The rendered surface uses the public 2021 Copernicus release, primarily based on TanDEM-X observations from 2011–2015 with infill from other sources. It is a surface model rather than a current bare-earth survey. Neutral shading explains the geometry without claiming a snow season or photographic ground texture. No datum conversion or summit correction is applied.
Quick facts
Ras Dashen uses an approximately 4,524-meter surface estimate in EGM2008 from Copernicus GLO-30. The bounded terrain section has about 1,503 meters of local relief above its lowest sampled point. Published summit surveys are separate references.
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Sources and measurement notes
- NASA Earth Observatory: Lake Tana and the Ethiopian Highlands, July 2021
- Copernicus DEM: dataset definition, datums and attribution
- Public Copernicus GLO-30 release documentation
- Wikidata: summit-area identity and initial coordinate
- Copernicus source terrain tile 1 (GeoTIFF)
The approximately 4,524-meter section maximum and NASA’s stated 4,533-meter reference are independent. Local relief uses the exact lowest sample inside this boundary.
Source review recorded . Maintained by Ishan Karunaratne. Suggest a correction with a source and the exact measurement being compared.