Mount Ararat: an overview
Mount Ararat, Ağrı Dağı in Turkish, is a volcanic massif in eastern Türkiye, near the border with Iran. It is the country’s highest mountain. Its two peaks, Great and Little Ararat, rise out of low plains, and the higher one carries a permanent cap of ice. This page gathers the main facts about the mountain and points to the pages where each subject is treated in depth.
In brief
| Location | Eastern Anatolia, near the border with Iran, between the Aras and Murat rivers (Ağrı Governorship) |
| Highest point | Greater Ağrı, 5,137 m (GoTürkiye; Ağrı Governorship) |
| Second peak | Little Ağrı, 3,896 m (same sources) |
| Width of the massif at its base | about 35 km (GoTürkiye) |
| Nature | two volcanic cones; the summit is described as a dormant volcanic cone covered with glaciers (GoTürkiye) |
| Protected status | declared a national park in 2004 (GoTürkiye) |
| First recorded ascent | 27 September (9 October) 1829, by a party led by Friedrich Parrot |
A volcanic massif
Every rock Parrot found on the mountain in 1829 was, in his words, volcanic: lava, cinders and trachytic rock. The Ağrı Governorship summarises the sequence as basalt up to about 4,000 m and andesite lavas above. James Bryce, who climbed it in 1876, lists trachytes, andesites and basalts, as well as pumice and obsidian. He also describes many secondary cones and craters on the flanks.
Bryce found no crater on either summit. No record exists of an eruption in historical times, he wrote. He mentions a claim by the German traveller Reineggs that smoke and flames were seen in February 1785, but notes that “nobody has believed his entirely unconfirmed assertion”. Official Turkish sources today describe the summit as a dormant volcanic cone. The geology, the rocks and the catastrophe of 1840 are covered on geology and nature.
Ice on a dry mountain
GoTürkiye calls the summit ice the largest permanent ice mass in Türkiye. The U.S. Geological Survey’s satellite series shows its area falling from 8.9 km² in 1977 to 5.3 km² in 2013 (see snow and ice). Bryce put the line of permanent snow at nearly 14,000 feet (about 4,270 m), much higher than in the Alps or the Caucasus. He explained this by the dryness of the region and the heat rising from the plain. In the deep chasm on the north-eastern side he found what he considered the mountain’s only true glacier.
The same dryness shapes the slopes. Bryce describes streams from the snows that vanish into the porous volcanic ground, leaving the mountain “painfully dry throughout”. He also describes the cloud that forms around the top on most summer and autumn days, a few hours after sunrise. The climate is covered on season and weather.
Zones of life
Seen from the plain, the mountain shows its zones at a glance. Bryce describes a pale base of volcanic sand and ash, a belt of green about 5,000 feet deep, a zone of black rock streaked with snow and the white cap above. The lower slopes carried sparse steppe vegetation. The middle zone, roughly 5,000 to 11,000 or 12,000 feet, was good pasture grazed by nomadic Kurds in summer, and the upper slopes were bare gravel and rock. Trees were almost absent. The only wood Bryce knew was a patch of low birches at the foot of Little Ararat. The plants and animals recorded by nineteenth-century observers are described on hazards and environment.
The mountain of the ark
The mountain’s fame in Europe comes from Genesis 8:4, where the ark rests “upon the mountains of Ararat”. GoTürkiye notes that the passage does not refer to a single peak. The identification with this mountain was made because it is the highest point in the region. Bryce traced how that identification grew into local legends: a monk forbidden by an angel to reach the ark, a vine said to have been planted by Noah at the village of Arguri, and a firm belief that the summit could not be climbed. The names of the mountain and their origins are on names of Mount Ararat.
Climbing history in outline
Parrot’s party reached the summit on its third attempt in 1829. Two of his Armenian companions later said they had seen higher tops above the point they reached, and the ascent was widely disbelieved in his lifetime. Bryce lists further ascents in 1834, 1845, 1850 and 1856 before his own ascent in September 1876, the last part of it alone. The Ağrı Governorship records a winter ascent in February 1970. The details, with the doubts attached to each account, are on climbing history and turnaround decisions.
A frontier mountain
Ararat has often stood on a border. Parrot records that after the peace between Russia and Persia of February 1828, the mountain became the extreme boundary of the Russian Empire towards Turkey and Persia. By 1876, Bryce wrote, the frontiers of the Russian, Ottoman and Persian empires met on the top of Little Ararat. Today the massif lies in eastern Türkiye, across provincial boundaries; see geographic setting. That history, and what official pages say about access today, is on permits and access.
Where to go next
- Where Mount Ararat stands and features on a map
- How high is Mount Ararat?
- Mount Ararat fact sheet with a source for every figure
- Primary sources on Mount Ararat
Sources
- Ağrı Valiliği, Ağrı Dağı (page dated 14.09.2020). Checked 14 September 2026.
- GoTürkiye, Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağı) in Ağrı. Checked 14 September 2026.
- Friedrich Parrot, Journey to Ararat, translated by W. D. Cooley, New York: Harper and Bros., 1846, ch. I and ch. X. Internet Archive. Read 25 September 2026.
- James Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 3rd ed., London: Macmillan, 1878, ch. VI pp. 198–241. Internet Archive. Read 25 September 2026.
- USGS EROS Center, RBV Images Mount Ararat. Checked 14 September 2026.