What is the world’s tallest mountain? The answer is actually deviously complicated. Most people likely think it’s Sagarmatha, otherwise known as Mount Everest, and in a way, they’re not wrong. At 29,032 feet tall, the Himalayan giant is the highest point above global mean sea level. But then there’s Hawaii’s Mauna Kea, a mountain that stands some 33,500 feet but with more than half of its rocky stature hidden below the surface of the Pacific. And there is a third contender, and it's a mountain that few people could even point out on a map. Ecuador’s Mount Chimborazo isn’t anything special — in fact, it’s only the 39th tallest peak in the Andes. But Chimborazo has a secret geographic advantage in the form of Earth’s equatorial bulge. The Earth isn’t a perfect sphere (see above) and because of its natural centrifugal bulge around its waistline, this relatively inconspicuous mountain is actually the highest terrestrial point from the center of the Earth — a full 2,072 meters (nearly 6,800 feet) higher than its Himalayan competition.