A mountain or anything for that matter could be thousands of kilometres in land. How do they do it?
In: Engineering
You might like the story of how Radhanath Sikdar, working for British Surveyor General George Everest, during the [Great Trigonometrical Survey of India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Trigonometrical_Survey), used a triangulation system involving [theodolites](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodolite) and [surveying chains](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunter%27s_chain), with very careful correction for factors such as temperature on the chains, to near perfectly estimate the height above sea level of Mt. Everest, though it is very far from the sea.
Sikdar came up with a figure of exactly 29,000 feet. So they added two feet, thinking no one would ever believe the even number.
NPR, on [Everest measurement, then and now](https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/938736955/how-tall-is-mount-everest-hint-its-changing), with some of the story
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