Mount Olympus

Where is Mount Olympus?

Mount Olympus is part of the Olympus massif.

You will find it in: Greece.

Summit: 40.086° N, 22.359° E

The story behind it

Mount Olympus is a limestone massif with more than 50 separate peaks and deep gorges, formed as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates pushed together over millions of years. Ancient Greeks believed its cloud-wrapped, often invisible summit was where Zeus and the other gods lived in golden palaces, feasting and ruling over mortals and immortals, a belief that shaped countless myths still told today. Because the mountain seemed so mysterious and forbidding, it stayed unclimbed by outsiders until surprisingly recently, only reached in 1913, far later than many taller Alpine peaks. The final ascent to Mytikas, the true summit, still requires scrambling over exposed, crumbly rock rather than a simple walk, and the mountain sits inside Greece's oldest national park, home to rare wildflowers, chamois, and golden eagles. Local guide Christos Kakkalos, who helped make that first ascent, kept guiding climbers up the peak for decades.

Find it on the globe

Mount Olympus is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.

It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.