A Ribu (pronounced ree-boo) is a prominent mountain summit with at least 1,000 metre elevation drop all around. That is, a mountain with a topographic prominence of 1,000 metres or more.

Conceived in 2009 in Java, Indonesia, we called them the Ribus because of the Indonesian and Malay word ‘ribu’ meaning a thousand. Our site currently covers Ribus in the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia and East Timor.

The variety of Ribus is huge; some are easy day-hikes near large cities; others are in remote and challenging environments and require weeks of travel and hiking to reach; some are active and dangerous volcanoes.

The Indonesian Ribus stretch across the Indonesian archipelago from Aceh in the west to Papua in the east.

There are three Ribu categories, three based on their absolute elevation plus a fourth ‘Spesial’ category for peaks which are considered to be of special interest locally but which doe not have 1,000 metres of prominence. Check the Methods page for more information on the analysis of prominence.

Sangat Tinggi	Tinggi Sedang	Kurang Tinggi	Spesial
(Very High) Over 3000 m elevation	(Fairly High) 2000 to 3000 m elevation	(Less High) Below 2000 m elevation	(Non-Ribu) A special reason to bag it

There are currently 375 Ribus, plus 157 Spesial peaks across the Gunung Bagging site.

The ‘Spesial’ category has a number of uses. Spesials are deemed of particular interest. For example Anak Krakatau is a mere 157 metres high, but is a Spesial because of its volcanic activity and great historical interest.

A list of all the Ribus in the world, with information such as name, elevation and prominence is now available. There are 7149 Ribus on Earth. A book is available via Pedantic Press.

You may find the following two files useful in planning your hiking trips across Southeast Asia:

An Excel spreadsheet with all the Ribus and Spesials listed, along with elevation, prominence, province, plus latitude and longitude data.

A KML file with all the Ribus and Spesials listed, for use with Google Earth.