Uganda / Kenya volcano
Mount Elgon
You can see 249 km from here, looking north.
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.
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 north
- 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 5Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 4,304 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 5 peaks you can name from here
From west to east as you turn around: height, distance and direction. Each one links to its guide on Peakyas, our mountain atlas.
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 December to January.
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.
- Janwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset49%
- Febwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset43%
- Marwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset33%
- Aprwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset22%
- Maywest-4 min before the sea-level sunset31%
- Junnorth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset36%
- Julwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Augwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset33%
- Sepwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset35%
- Octwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset27%
- Novwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Decsouth-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset46%
- 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
Mount Elgon.
Shield volcano on the border of Uganda and Kenya
Mount Elgon is a volcano in Uganda, 4,304 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 249 km away, looking north.
5 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mount Kadam (3,063 m), 74 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from December to January.
Get there and stay
- Kaiyahcampsite · 5.3 km · 2 within 10 km
- Masabaplace to stay · 4.3 km · 5 within 10 km
- Budadirinearest town · 22 km in a straight linePlaces to stay in BudadiriBooking.com · sponsored link↗
- Eldoret International Airport (EDL)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 112 km in a straight lineCar hire in KampalaDiscover Cars · sponsored link↗
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.
Around, in OpenStreetMap
- 2named peaks within 5 kmMasaba, Wagagai
- 2campsites within 10 kmKaiyah, Sasa River Camp
- 5places to stay within 10 kmMasaba, Mude Cave, Mude Cave Camp and 2 more
- 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
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 Mount Elgon, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas11 mountains within 25 kmFigures from the sister sites' databases (Wikidata, HydroATLAS, GeoNames, OpenStreetMap, GBIF). Links open when each site is online.
Photographs
The view, as people saw it.
Other viewpoints nearby.
Mount Elgon
Uganda
- 72Viewyas Score
- 249 kmFarthest ridge
- 5Peaks in view
- 4,304 mAltitude
Mount Longonot
Kenya · 312 km
- 76Viewyas Score
- 249 kmFarthest ridge
- 10Peaks in view
- 2,723 mAltitude
Central Island
Kenya · 314 km
- 74Viewyas Score
- 181 kmFarthest ridge
- 2Peaks in view
- 517 mAltitude
Mount Kenya
Kenya · 327 km
- 71Viewyas Score
- 249 kmFarthest ridge
- 4Peaks in view
- 2,991 mAltitude
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q732838) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Sun | J. Meeus, Astronomical Algorithms |
| Peaks in view | Peakyas (Wikidata, CC0) |
| Panorama and altitude | Copernicus DEM GLO-90 / GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Clouds | NASA POWER (CERES SYN1deg, 2001–2020; MERRA-2) |
| What is around | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
| Sister atlases | Peakyas, Darkskyas, Cavernyas |
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?
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