
Height is the measurement of vertical distance, but has two meanings in common use. It can either indicate how "tall" something is, or how "high up" it is. For example one could say "That is a tall building", or "That airplane is high up in the sky". These can both be referred to as the height of the object, as in "The height of the building is 50 m" or "The height of the airplane is 10,000 m". When used to describe how high something like an airplane or mountain peak is from sea level, height is more often called altitude. Height is measured along the vertical (y) axis between a specified point and another point.
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Height is the measurement of vertical distance, but has two meanings in common use. It can either indicate how "tall" something is, or how "high up" it is. For example one could say "That is a tall building", or "That airplane is high up in the sky". These can both be referred to as the height of the object, as in "The height of the building is 50 m" or "The height of the airplane is 10,000 m". When used to describe how high something like an airplane or mountain peak is from sea level, height is more often called altitude. Height is measured along the vertical (y) axis between a specified point and another point.
In geodesy
Instead of using the sea-level, geodesists often prefer to define height from the surface of a reference ellipsoid, see Geodetic system, vertical datum.
Defining the height of geographic landmarks becomes a question of reference. For example, the highest mountain by elevation in reference to sea-level belongs to Mount Everest, located on the border of Nepal and Tibet, China; however the highest mountain by measurement of apex to base belongs to Mauna Kea in Hawaii, United States.
In aviation
In aviation terminology, the terms height, altitude, and elevation are not synonyms. Usually, the altitude of an aircraft is measured from sea-level, while its height is measured from ground level. Elevation is also measured from sea-level, but is most often regarded as a property of the ground. Thus, elevation plus height can equal altitude. But the term altitude has several meanings in aviation, see Altitude in aviation.
See also
- CGS unit
- Chinese unit
- Imperial unit
- International System of Units
- U.S. customary units
- Human height
- Acrophobia (Fear of heights)


























