Worldwide Ribus

Since 2019, a group of mountain lovers scattered across the globe have been putting together a list of all the Ribus in the world, with information such as name, elevation and prominence. There are approximately 7150. A first edition of the list is now available on the World Ribus website.

If you would like to work out how many Ribus you have climbed elsewhere in the world, or check if a favourite peak is indeed a Ribu, simply consult the ongoing World Ribus website to see if the peak has been confirmed as a Ribu. This is by far the best method currently possible as data has been manually checked and amended using various sources for cross-checking by a human editor.

A sub-Ribu is a peak with a prominence of between 990 metres and 999 metres and therefore fails to quality as a Ribu by ten metres or less. This sub-list will be published later as an appendix to the main list. At the most recent count in September 2023, there are – very approximately – around 232 sub-Ribus.

Background and history: According to Andrew Kirmse‘s excellent Fusion Table in 2017 covering all peaks in the world down to a prominence of 300 feet (!), there were approximately 6637 Ribus globally. His improved and revised list using GLO-30 DEM (Digital Elevation Model) in 2023 gave a figure of 6842. Because the current methods for obtaining elevation data remain imprecise, checking these one-by-one is necessary in order to produce the best quality list. The latest count by the World Ribus project (see below) in September 2023 is 7150. Those identified at present include 8 in Taiwan, 58 in The Philippines, 16 in Australia (including 3 in Tasmania) and 68 in New Zealand (including 4 on the North Island).

On the image above, red circles denote Ultra-prominent peaks (the ‘Ultras’, with over 1500m of topographic prominence) and the pink circles denote Ribus. All Ultras are obviously also Ribus! Huge thanks to Andrew Kirmse for his pioneering work.