How can a country's lowest point be 1,400 metres above sea level?

Every country has a lowest point. For most, it's the coast, where the land runs out at the sea.

Lesotho has no coast. It is one of only three countries entirely surrounded by another, alongside Vatican City and San Marino, and the country around it is South Africa.

Its lowest point is 1,400 metres up.

Go downhill as far as Lesotho allows and you reach the spot where the Makhaleng River flows into the Senqu, as the Orange River is called in Lesotho. That is the bottom of the country, and it is about 1,400 metres (4,600 ft) above sea level.

No other country's lowest point is that high. The Central Bank of Lesotho calls it "the highest lowest point of any country in the world".

Lesotho's lowest point is higher than any other country's. It is the only country that lies entirely above 1,000 metres (3,300 ft).

Even the lowlands are high.

Lesotho does have lowlands, in the west, along the border with South Africa's Free State. They sit at roughly 1,500 to 1,800 m (4,900 to 5,900 ft).

And that's the low part. About 80% of the country lies above 1,800 m (5,900 ft), and the highest point, Thabana Ntlenyana, reaches 3,482 m (11,424 ft).

3,482 m
Highest point
Thabana Ntlenyana (11,424 ft)
1,800 m
About 80% of Lesotho lies above this
5,900 ft
1,400 m
Lowest point
Where the Makhaleng meets the Senqu (Orange): 4,600 ft
1,000 m
No part of Lesotho is this low
The only country lying entirely above it (3,300 ft)

Lesotho starts high and climbs higher, shown from highest to lowest. The steps are evenly spaced, not to scale: the climb from 1,800 m to the summit is more than four times the rise from 1,400 m to 1,800 m.

The whole country sits on the plateau.

Lesotho isn't one giant mountain. It sits on the high plateau of southern Africa's interior, at the top of the Great Escarpment, the long step down towards the coast.

Its sharpest edge is the Drakensberg, which runs along Lesotho's eastern border: basalt capping a sandstone base, with a steep scarp facing KwaZulu-Natal. The big drop towards the Indian Ocean happens on the South African side. Inland, it gives way to Lesotho's weathered basalt mountains, including the Maloti, cut by deep gorges.

What does all that height do?

It makes winters harsh. In the highlands, temperatures below −18 °C (0 °F) are not unusual, and the Maloti are usually snowcapped in winter. The mountains also gather water: through a series of highland dams, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project harnesses the Senqu (Orange), sending water to South Africa's Gauteng province and generating hydroelectricity for Lesotho.

The next time you hear Lesotho called the Kingdom in the Sky, take it literally. Even the bottom of the country is 1,400 metres up.