Ethiopia summit
Ras Dashen
You can see 248 km from here, looking north-west.
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 248 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).
- 248 kmFarthest ridgelooking north-west
- 100%Open horizonof the circle where the horizon is below your eyes
- 3Peaks in viewnamed summits that rise above the relief in front
- 4,490 mAltitudeabove the sea, at the highest point of the viewpoint
The 3 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 November to February.
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.
- Janwestsets on an open horizon76%
- Febwest12 min before the sea-level sunset73%
- Marwest2 min before the sea-level sunset64%
- Aprwest-2 min before the sea-level sunset55%
- Maywest-2 min before the sea-level sunset44%
- Junnorth-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset32%
- Julnorth-west-4 min before the sea-level sunset19%
- Augwest-4 min before the sea-level sunset20%
- Sepwest2 min before the sea-level sunset37%
- Octwest10 min before the sea-level sunset61%
- Novwest4 min before the sea-level sunset72%
- Decsouth-west-2 min before the sea-level sunset79%
- 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
Ras Dashen.
Mountain in Ethiopia
Ras Dashen is a summit in Ethiopia, 4,490 m above the sea.
On a clear day the farthest ridge you can see is 248 km away, looking north-west.
3 named peaks rise above the relief in front; the most prominent is Mount Bwahit (4,437 m), 17 km away.
The horizon is open, below your eyes, over 100% of the circle.
The skies are clearest from November to February.
Get there and stay
- Axum Airport (AXU)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 110 km in a straight line
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 kmRas Dashen, Ancua
- 1campsites within 10 km
- 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
- 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 Ras Dashen, and what is near.
Everything around this viewpoint — mountains, water, forests, birds, caves and the night sky — in the family's atlases.
Peakyas8 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.
Ras Dashen
Ethiopia
- 77Viewyas Score
- 248 kmFarthest ridge
- 3Peaks in view
- 4,490 mAltitude
Emba Soira
Eritrea · 210 km
- 89Viewyas Score
- 232 kmFarthest ridge
- 9Peaks in view
- 2,989 mAltitude
Erta Ale
Ethiopia · 251 km
- 82Viewyas Score
- 151 kmFarthest ridge
- 16Peaks in view
- 578 mAltitude
Where these figures come from
| Name and type | Wikidata (Q275435) · 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 |
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.
beaches
Find your beach: sea temperature, sun and swimming month by month.Visit 
lakes
Every lake on Earth: water temperature, ice, depth and the shore.Visit mountains
Every summit in 3D: summit weather, the 0 °C line, huts and trails.Visit 
waterfalls
Every waterfall: height, flow month by month and when it roars.Visit 
islands
Every island from the sea up: size, sea temperature, ferries and 3D.Visit 
rivers
Every river from source to sea: the journey, the flow and the basin in numbers.Visit 
canyons
Every canyon cut to scale: depth to the floor, rim and floor temperatures, trails and viewpoints.Visit 
caves
Every cave with its real depth and length: the rock above, the temperature inside all year, and how to visit.Visit 
dark skies
Where the night is still dark: the sky of every place, the Milky Way month by month, the Moon, eclipses and auroras.Visit 
viewpoints
Every viewpoint with its real 360° panorama: the peaks you can name, how far you see and where the sun sets.You are here
birdwatching
Every bird sanctuary and wetland with the species recorded month by month: who is resident, who comes for the summer, who only passes through.Visit 
forests
Every forest with its land-cover rings, what grows and lives in it, and the best months to walk it.Visit