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Bhutan Bhutan summit

Gangkhar Puensum

You can see 249 km from here, looking south-east.

Calculating the panorama…

Drag to turn around. The relief is drawn 2.2 times taller so the ridges can be read; far ridges are paler, as in the real air.

The view

Up to 249 km away.

Calculated on the relief one degree at a time, up to 250 km, with the curvature of the Earth and the refraction of the air: what stands above the horizon from here.

82out of 100

Our own rating, from the relief and the climate only: open horizon (35 points), how far you see (25), sea and named peaks in view (20) and clear months (20).

  • 249 kmFarthest ridgelooking south-east
  • 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
  • 15Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
  • 7,489 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint

From the relief only: buildings, trees and haze are not in the model. On a hazy day you see much less; 250 km is the limit of our calculation.

The sun

The best sunsets are from November to December.

When the sun really disappears from this viewpoint — behind the relief or into the sea — and in which direction, on the 15th of each month, in local time.

  1. Jansouth-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset62%
  2. Febwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset56%
  3. Marwestsets on an open horizon45%
  4. Aprwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset37%
  5. Maywest-2 min before the sea-level sunset37%
  6. Junnorth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset31%
  7. Julnorth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset18%
  8. Augwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset21%
  9. Sepwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset34%
  10. Octwestsets on an open horizon56%
  11. Novwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset66%
  12. Decsouth-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset69%
  • Time: when the sun goes behind the horizon you see from here.
  • Minutes: how much earlier the relief hides the sun.
  • %: share of clear sky that month (NASA, 2001–2020).

The highlighted months are the clearest. Golden hour starts about an hour before.

The place

Gangkhar Puensum.

Mountain on the Bhutan-China border

Gangkhar Puensum is a summit in Bhutan, 7,489 m above the sea.

On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 249 km away, looking south-east.

15 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Noijin Kangsang (7,206 m), 104 km away.

The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.

The skies are clearest from November to December.

Himalayan peak from Bumthang
Christopher J. Fynn · CC BY-SA 4.0

Get there and stay

Plan the visit

A guided tour, a bed nearby, a car.

Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.

From above

The viewpoint and its surroundings.

The satellite image of the 6 × 6 km around the viewpoint, with what OpenStreetMap shows nearby.

Gangkhar Puensum seen from above (Sentinel-2)
Seen from above: Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 6 × 6 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.

Around, in OpenStreetMap

  • 3named peaks within 5 km岗嘎本松峰 གངས་དཀར་སྤུན་གསུམ་, 良岗岗日, 岗松土久
  • other viewpoints within 5 km
  • cable car and funicular stations within 5 km
  • marked trails within 3 km
  • shelters and huts within 5 km
  • car parks within 3 km
  • visitor centres within 5 km
  • restaurants and cafés within 3 km
  • campsites within 10 km
  • places to stay within 10 km

Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit. A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet.

In our other atlases

What you see from Gangkhar Puensum, and what is near.

Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.

Peakyas3 mountains within 25 km
Gangkhar Puensum · this placeGangkhar Puensum7,570 m · 0.1 kmLiankang Kangri7,534 m · 2.5 kmGejag Kangri6,970 m · 20 km

Figures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.

Photographs

The view, as people saw it.

082 - Gangkar Puensum - 7,570m (Dochula pass) (4677022812) (3to4)
dhaag23 · CC BY 2.0

Other viewpoints nearby.

Gangkhar Puensum

Bhutan

  • 82Viewyas Score
  • 249 kmFarthest ridge
  • 15Peaks in view
  • 7,489 mAltitude

Kula Kangri

Bhutan · 25 km

  • 82Viewyas Score
  • 249 kmFarthest ridge
  • 14Peaks in view
  • 7,402 mAltitude

See the guide

Chomolhari

China · 119 km

  • 80Viewyas Score
  • 249 kmFarthest ridge
  • 49Peaks in view
  • 7,280 mAltitude

See the guide

Kanchenjunga

Nepal · 230 km

  • 77Viewyas Score
  • 249 kmFarthest ridge
  • 42Peaks in view
  • 8,532 mAltitude

See the guide

Where these figures come from

Name and typeWikidata (Q219986) · CC0
SunJ. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms
Peaks in viewPeakyas (Wikidata, CC0)
Panorama and altitudeCopernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA
CloudsNASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2)
What is around© OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL
ImagesEOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons
Sister atlasesPeakyas, Darkskyas

Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.

The family

Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers, canyons, caves, dark skies, viewpoints, birdwatching or forests?

Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, in seven languages.