On 2006-06-07, Ken Reed wrote:
If it's over 1,000 feet from the base to the top, it's a mountain.

According to ?

Poking around the Internet, there appears to be many definitions for a
mountain - 1000 feet is what they told us at school (probably because we
lived within sight of the Malvern Hills, which are a little over 1000
feet and defined locally as 'mountains'), and probably due to the old
Ordnance Survey definition (more on that later).

Wikipedia says that "In the United States, a mountain is 1,000 feet
(304.4 metres) or more in height from bottom to summit. A hill is 500
(152.4 metres) to 999 (304 metres) feet. A discernible hill that is less
than 500 feet high is a knoll" (with the caveat 'citation needed').
However, the USGS says there is no official definition as to what makes
a mountain a mountain and not merely a hill - it seems to be locally
defined.

In the UK, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs defines
mountain as all land over 600 m. This is a close metric equivalent
of 2,000 ft (which is 609.6 metres). The British Ordnance Survey (the
people who do all the surveying and mapping in the UK) used to define a
mountain as being 1000 feet or more, but no longer appear to have an
official definition of what makes a mountain.

So, in summary - if you're in the US, anything over 1000 feet bottom to
top is a mountain, in the UK - if you're following the old OS
definition, also 1000 feet. But you need 2000 feet if you're following
DEFRA's definition.

Online dictionaries are rather vague - "A natural elevation of the
earth's surface having considerable mass, generally steep sides, and a
height greater than that of a hill."

In any case, if it's steep sided and you run a plane into the side of
it, you're going to be just as dead whether the definition of mountain
is 1000 feet or 2000 feet over the prevailing terrain, or not officially
defined at all. Even small mountains, such as Snaefell in the Isle of
Man (just over 2,000 feet) generate the usual mountain effects -
downdrafts, rotor, mountain wave, local weather variations etc. so not
respecting the smaller mountains is foolish.

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