The incredible variety of landscapes on Earth has kept explorers busy for centuries. Even now that virtually all of the land has been mapped, the most extreme locations on the planet—highest, lowest, hottest, coldest and so on—have historically been difficult to identify. Some are still debated today. All of them remain intriguing and continue to beckon the most intrepid among us. This collection of maps highlights some of those extreme geographical outliers.

The distinction of the highest point on Earth is usually granted to Mount Everest, or Qomolangma as it is known in Tibetan. At 29,035 feet above sea level, it’s an extremely challenging mountain to climb, largely because the air is so thin at that elevation. It wasn’t until around