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Topographic ProminenceIn topography, prominence, also known as autonomous height, relative height, shoulder drop or prime factor (in Europe), is a concept used in the categorization of hills and mountains. It describes how tall a peak is relative to neighbouring peaks, and in a way that makes precise the intuition that the world's second-tallest mountain is in fact K2 (height 8,611 m, prominence 3811 m), and not, say, Everest's South Summit (height 8749 m, prominence about 10 m). The prominence of a summit is the height of the summit above the lowest contour line encircling it and no higher summit (the base contour of that summit). For all peaks except the highest on a landmass, this is the same as the vertical difference between it and the highest col connecting it to a higher summit. That higher summit is unique and is known as the parent of the summit. This gives rise to a way to put all the peaks on a landmass into a hierarchy showing which peaks are subpeaks of which others. For example, in the diagram on the right, the middle peak is a subpeak of the right peak, which is in turn a subpeak of the left peak, which is the highest point on its landmass. The col linking a peak to its parent is called a key col, linking col or just link. Prominence is interesting to mountaineers because it is an objective measurement that is strongly correlated with the subjective significance of a summit. Peaks with low prominences are really just subsidiary tops of some higher summit. Peaks with high prominences tend to be the highest points around and are likely to have extraordinary views. In the U.S., 2000 feet of prominence has become an informal threshold that signifies that a peak has major stature. Many lists of mountains take topographic prominence as a criterion for inclusion. John and Anne Nuttall's The Mountains of England and Wales uses 15 m (about 50 ft), whereas Alan Dawson's list of Marilyns uses 150 m (about 500 ft). Lists with a high topographic prominence inclusion criterion tend to favour isolated peaks or those that are the highest point of their massif; a low value, such as the Nuttalls', results in a list with many summits which may be viewed by some as insignificant. See also References External links
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