Kilimanjaro

Kilimanjaro (kĭl'ĭmənjä`rō), highest mountain of Africa, NE Tanzania. An extinct volcano, it rises in two peaks, Uhuru (Kibo; 19,340 ft/5,895 m, Africa's highest point) and Mawenzi (17,564 ft/5,354 m), which are joined by a broad saddle (alt. c.15,000 ft/4,600 m). The mountaintop is noted for its snowcap, but the area covered by snow has decreased sharply since the early 1990s. Coffee and plantains are the chief crops raised on Kilimanjaro's intensively cultivated lower southern slopes. Tourism from mountain climbing has become an important source of revenue.

---

Kilimanjaro

Crater rim of Kilimanjaro at dawn.

(credit: Gerald Cubitt)

Volcanic mountain, northeastern Tanzania. Situated in Kilimanjaro National Park (established 1973), it includes the peaks of three extinct volcanoes: Kibo, Mawensi, and Shira. Its highest peak is Kibo, which rises to 19,340 ft (5,895 m) and is the highest point in Africa. The first Europeans to see Kilimanjaro were German missionaries (1848). Kibo was first scaled in 1889 and Mawensi (16,896 ft [5,150 m]) in 1912.

---

Kilimanjaro

a volcanic massif in N Tanzania: the highest peak in Africa; extends from east to west for 80 km (50 miles). Height: 5895 m (19 340 ft.)

---

Kilimanjaro 

(in Swahili, “mountain of the god of cold”; according to another version, “sparkling mountain”), a volcanic massif in East Africa, in Tanzania, reaching an elevation of 5,895 m, the highest point on the continent. It was formed from the merger of three now extinct volcanoes: Kibo (5,895 m), Mawensi (5,355 m), and Shira (4,006 m). Kibo’s crater, up to 2.5 km wide and up to 180 m deep, has an inner cone with a relative height of about 580 m and a crater more than 800 m wide. Kilimanjaro is composed mainly of trachybasalts and phonolites. On the humid southern and southwestern slopes, at an elevation of about 3,100 m, annual precipitation ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 mm. From the foothills to 1,000 m, the slopes are covered with savannas, and coffee and banana plantations, growing on the site of cut forests, are found to 1,800 m. Tropical rain forests with epiphytes and ferns extend to 3,100 m, tropical alpine vegetation (paramos) is found to 4,200 m, and xerophytic pulvinate grasses grow to 4,800 m. Above 4,800 m are lava fields, and on the crests, glacial relief forms predominate, with glaciers descending as far as 4,300 m on the western slopes.