Ukraine’s Highest Peak Hoverla: 2,061 m on the Maps, 2,056 m by Satellite Survey

Hoverla (Говерла) is Ukraine’s highest mountain. The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine’s Енциклопедія Сучасної України (Encyclopedia of Modern Ukraine, “ESU” below; volume 6, published 2006) describes it as the highest peak of both the Ukrainian Carpathians and Ukraine as a whole, on the border of Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia oblasts, part of the Chornohora massif, at an elevation of 2,061 m. As of September 2026, the reserve and national nature park that manage the mountain also use 2,061 m in their guidance.

However, Polish researchers who carried out satellite positioning at the summit in 2018 published a figure of 2,056.0 m (±0.5 m). Maps and gazetteers from the 19th century to the 1930s had also given a range of values, from 2,050.7 m to 2,058.0 m. This article covers the mountain’s location and name, and where these figures come from. The wider picture of Ukraine’s mountains and rivers is covered in our article on Ukraine’s land and water, and the system of protected areas in our article on Ukraine’s nature reserves.

On the Chornohora Ridge

According to the University of Alberta’s Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine (IEU), Chornohora is the highest mountain group in the Ukrainian Carpathians, its main ridge running about 40 km from the Chorna Tysa River east to the Chornyi Cheremosh River. Most of the ridge forms the watershed between the Prut and Tysa rivers, and, the same entry notes, has for centuries also been the border between whichever countries Galicia and Zakarpattia belonged to.

The paper by the researchers who measured Hoverla (2020) likewise explains that the Chornohora ridge was once the border of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, later the border of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and is now the border of Zakarpattia and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts. The same paper states that six mountains in Ukraine exceed 2,000 m in elevation — Hoverla, Brebeneskul, Pip Ivan, Petros, Rebra, and Hutyn Tomnatyk — all of them in Chornohora.

ESU describes Hoverla as a cone-shaped mountain, with the southern slope steeper. Its slopes carry cirques and moraines left by Pleistocene glaciers, spruce forest lower down, and subalpine and alpine grassland and scrub above that. One of the sources of the Prut River, and a waterfall, are at the foot of the eastern slope. IEU likewise states that a spring feeding the Prut is on this mountain. According to Ukraine’s national encyclopedia, Велика українська енциклопедія (Great Ukrainian Encyclopedia, “VUE” below), the Prut is a 953 km river that flows through Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi oblasts, Moldova, and Romania before joining the Danube.

IEU’s Chornohora entry describes the people living at the foot of this mountain group as Hutsuls, and states that the grazing season runs 5 months. The Hutsuls are covered in our article on the three Carpathian groups, and grazing in mountain pastures in our article on Hutsul herding.

Two Protected Areas Meeting at the Summit

IEU states that Hoverla lies on the border between the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve and Carpathian National Nature Park. IEU’s entry on national nature parks also explains that the park was established in 1980 as Ukraine’s first national park, is located in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, and shares Ukraine’s highest peak, Hoverla, with the biosphere reserve.

On its official website, the park gives its legal basis as Decision No. 376 of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR of June 3, 1980, and Presidential Decree No. 215 of March 23, 2010 (expanding the area), and states that the park lies north of the Chornohora watershed, in the elevation range from 500 m to 2,061 m. ESU places Hoverla within the national nature park’s strictly protected zone (заповідна зона). On the south side of the summit, in Zakarpattia Oblast, the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve lists Hoverla as one of its featured sites. Part of the Chornohora forest is also a component of the UNESCO World Heritage beech forests of Europe (see our article on the beech-forest World Heritage site).

2,061 m, and a Re-Measured 2,056 m

Four geodesy researchers from the AGH University of Science and Technology (Krakow), Poland, surveyed the summits of Hoverla and Pip Ivan on September 13, 2018, and published their results on June 11, 2020, in the Thai academic journal Maejo International Journal of Science and Technology. According to the university’s press office, the work was carried out in cooperation with Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University in Ivano-Frankivsk.

According to the paper, the researchers set a GNSS (satellite positioning) receiver at a clear-sighted point close to the summit and observed for 5 hours, then measured the height difference from that point to the summit by leveling. What they took as Hoverla’s summit was a concrete marker with an incised cross. The concrete monument at the summit had also served as an earlier triangulation point, the paper states. Since satellite positioning gives height above an ellipsoid that approximates the Earth, the researchers converted this to height above sea level using a global gravity-field model (EGM2008), to match the “normal height” system used legally in Ukraine.

The result: Hoverla, 2,056.0 m (±0.5 m); Pip Ivan, 2,019.4 m (±0.5 m). The paper describes both as “several meters lower than the official elevation.” The summit carries several commemorative markers (ESU), and, according to the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve, also a plaque holding a capsule with soil from every oblast of Ukraine.

How the Elevation Differs by Source

The paper also collected Hoverla’s height as given in past maps and gazetteers. Arranged chronologically alongside the encyclopedia and reserve figures, they look like this.

The paper attributes the differences among the older values to how the sea-level baseline was set, the precision of the survey, and how Viennese fathoms or feet were converted to meters. It also notes that older surveys may have measured the top of a triangulation tower or a summit monument. AGH’s press article explains that in Austrian territory, the sea-level baseline was set at Trieste on the Adriatic.

However, a 2021 press article from the same university introduces the measured value as “2,055.5 m,” which does not match the paper’s 2,056.0 m. This article uses the paper’s figure. Encyclopedias and reserve guidance still give 2,061 m as of September 2026.

“Hoverlia” and “Hoverla”

The mountain’s name isn’t spelled just one way, either. IEU titles its entry “Hoverlia” and gives the Ukrainian as “Говерля” (Hoverlia) — a reprint of an entry published on paper in 1988. ESU (2006), VUE, and the reserve and national nature park, on the other hand, write “Говерла” (Hoverla).

On the origin of the name, the Carpathian Biosphere Reserve explains it as coming from the Hungarian “hóvár” (snow mountain). ESU and IEU don’t touch on the origin. This article writes the mountain’s name as “Hoverla,” matching the spelling used across Ukrainavi’s other articles.