What major cities have a big mountain looming over them?

December 19, 2022 1:37 AM

I really like when a city has one big mountain that's visible from lots of places in town. Think Seattle, Tokyo, or Yerevan. What other cities could be described this way?

It's ok if the mountain is part of a mountain range, but it's got to have one big peak with a name everyone knows. I'd say the deciding factor of whether a city qualifies to be on this list is that you can easily find touristy stuff that's got one big mountain on it and that mountain isn't necessarily named on the merchandise because everyone knows it's Mt Rainier or whatever.

posted by potrzebie to Grab Bag (54 answers total)

Naples, Mount Vesuvius
Cape Town, Table Mountain

(And possibly Honolulu, Diamond Head?)
posted by argonauta at 1:57 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Anchorage, AK: Denali (has to be a nice day to see it, but we all know the spots in town you can catch it from).
posted by charmedimsure at 2:02 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Colorado Springs (my home!) is famous for Pikes Peak. It looms majestically over the city, and a million t-shirts, keychains, postcards, and shotglasses have been dedicated to its visage.

Fun fact: The song America the Beautiful was inspired by Pikes Peak. The purple mountain majesty line is utterly true, the mountain glows copper and purple on clear mornings. Super pretty.
posted by mochapickle at 2:05 AM on December 19, 2022 [10 favorites]

Edinburgh, although its a fairly small mountain
posted by crocomancer at 2:25 AM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

Marín County CA as a whole has Mt. Tamalpais.
posted by ananci at 2:30 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Haven't been there but photos suggest Portland OR and Mt Hood
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:31 AM on December 19, 2022 [5 favorites]

The fun thing about Mt. Fuji is that the “town with one visible” thing applies to an absolute ton of cities and towns throughout the Kanto area.

Past that, the whole Ibaraki skyline is dominated by Mt. Tsukuba, which we can see (on a clear day) from the prefecture to the south. Pretty much any city in Ibaraki, especially Tsukuba City, fits that bill.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:39 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Kagoshima (pop. ~600K, at the SW end of the large islands of Japan) has the remarkably active volcano Sakurajima across the bay. Even when you can't see it, Sakurajima obligingly drizzles fine grey volcanic ash over the city most of the time, so you always know it's there
posted by scruss at 2:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Montreal? The very name comes from "Mount Royal", which is pretty much IN town.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:47 AM on December 19, 2022 [11 favorites]

How big of a city are we talking? Crested Butte, Colorado has this, but it's no Tokyo...
posted by saladin at 3:01 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Kunanyi (Mount Wellington) has a definite presence over Hobart, Tasmania. Often it creates weather systems for the nearer parts of the city too.
posted by Athanassiel at 3:10 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

🎶 Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus Kilimanjaro above the Serengeti Moshi.
🎶 Sure as Olympus rises like Olympus above the Serengeti Thessaloniki
🎶 Sure as Olympus Everest rises like Olympus the Serengeti Katmandhu
posted by rongorongo at 3:26 AM on December 19, 2022 [6 favorites]

Southern Seoul has Gwanaksan, central Seoul has Namsan and towards the north there are a bunch of mountains as a backdrop.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:56 AM on December 19, 2022

I think both Albuquerque and Phoenix qualify.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:00 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Mittenwald, Germany in the Bavarian Alps.
posted by Serene Empress Dork at 4:19 AM on December 19, 2022

Vancouver BC.
posted by miles1972 at 5:40 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Rio de Janeiro / Sugarloaf

Brattleboro VT / Wantastiquet, which is across the river in New Hampshire.
posted by beagle at 5:53 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Portland OR has Mt Hood. Bend OR has Mt Bachelor (plus others, depending on what part of town you're in) but I can't call it a "major" city.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:15 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, has Doi Suthep.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 6:24 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Salt Lake City, UT.
posted by kiwi-epitome at 6:38 AM on December 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

Just as an aside, Tokyo does not have a "big mountain looming over it". There is a big, famous mountain off in the distance, but it's only visible a few times a year and from a few locations in town.

I've seen cities with mountains looming over them, and the mountain-city relationship looks very different from Tokyo.
posted by Umami Dearest at 6:45 AM on December 19, 2022 [11 favorites]

Teheran -- Tochal
posted by mumimor at 7:05 AM on December 19, 2022

Tucson, AZ has Mt Lemmon and the rest of the Santa Catalina mountains looming over it, visible and imposing from everywhere in town -- you pretty much have to go over a different mountain range to get out of sight of the Catalinas. Might be a borderline case, as the summit of Lemmon specifically doesn't visibly stand out over the others when viewed from the city; but, it is still *the* mountain.
posted by egregious theorem at 7:19 AM on December 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Luzern, Switzerland and Mount Pilatus. I spent a very happy summer under its watch.
posted by socky_puppy at 7:22 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Tbilisi, Mtatsminda looming over the Old Town and Elia Hill with the Holy Trinity Cathedral on the other bank of the river. Each time the winding roads brought the latter into view, our taxi driver would cross himself. Plenty of mountains surrounding the city (plus well, Georgia is famously hilly), but those two are inside the city centre itself.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 7:41 AM on December 19, 2022

+1 SLC - not so much a single huge peak, but the entire eastern valley ridgeline is beautiful, towering mountains as far as you can see to the north and south. There's also a smallish (what may be medium-large in other places) range on the west side of the valley, but it's less picturesque now that Man's Biggest Hole© is in the middle of it.
posted by _DB_ at 7:48 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Mexico City
posted by mmf at 8:28 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Banff is obviously in the middle of the Canadian Rockies, but the town's main street was deliberately aligned to have Cascade Mountain as it's terminating vista.
posted by Superilla at 8:55 AM on December 19, 2022 [4 favorites]

We're not in any way a major city, but our village has a really cool mountain looming over it (can't see the carving of the racist traitors from our side), and on a clear day, you can see it well from downtown Atlanta as well.
posted by hydropsyche at 9:11 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Boulder, co
posted by brujita at 9:41 AM on December 19, 2022

Monterrey, Mexico.
posted by AndrewInDC at 9:54 AM on December 19, 2022

Definitely Albuquerque, NM and the Sandias!
posted by forkisbetter at 10:11 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Los Angeles has Mount San Antonio (Mount Baldy) amid several mountain ranges -- the Verdugo, Santa Monica, and San Gabriel ranges are all very visible on clear days.
posted by acridrabbit at 10:20 AM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Red Mountain is visible from much of Birmingham, Alabama, though it's not nearly as dramatic as the volcanic peaks you cite as examples. It does have a cool statue, though.
posted by fogovonslack at 10:46 AM on December 19, 2022

Roanoke, VA, which is a not-major-but-pretty-great city located at the intersection of the Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountain ranges, has Mill Mountain within city limits.
posted by headnsouth at 10:51 AM on December 19, 2022

Hong Kong
posted by mshrike at 11:27 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

What, no New Plymouth, NZ yet? I guess it's not actually a major city, but Mt Taranaki certainly meets your criteria.
posted by inexorably_forward at 11:40 AM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

Burnaby Mountain is in Burnaby (next to Vancouver), though it's not a particularly interesting looking mountain (more like a giant hill).

Vancouver has mountains on the North Shore but I wouldn't say any one of them really dominates or has huge name recognition. Maybe Cypress or Grouse.

Canmore, Alberta isn't a huge place but the Three Sisters is the iconic mountain. Banff has mount Rundle which is the iconic one.
posted by lookoutbelow at 12:03 PM on December 19, 2022

Maybe Cochabamba Bolivia doesn't count but has Tunari
posted by freethefeet at 12:28 PM on December 19, 2022

Shasta, California has Mt. Sasta.
posted by Oyéah at 12:55 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Pasadena, actually all those little cities along the 210, Arcadia, Azusa, Rancho Cuc


camonga, they're all up against the San Gabriel mountains, which can disappear on hazy days.
posted by Rash at 1:27 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Also, vaguely, Silicon Valley. On a nice clear day after raining, there may be snow up on Mt. Diablo, making it shine brightly in the winter sunlight. Not as tall as but not near as far away as Fujisan is from Tokyo.
posted by Rash at 1:35 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

Bellingham WA: Kulshan/Baker
posted by Jacqueline at 2:06 PM on December 19, 2022

Perhaps too small, but chattanooga with Lookout Mountain
posted by Occula at 2:52 PM on December 19, 2022 [2 favorites]

The cites around the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica
posted by Threeve at 4:15 PM on December 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

There are little towns in Croatia such as Makarska and Ston that have a mountain or large hill looming right over in the background.
posted by ambulatorybird at 4:37 PM on December 19, 2022

Also, vaguely, Silicon Valley. On a nice clear day after raining, there may be snow up on Mt. Diablo, making it shine brightly in the winter sunlight. Not as tall as but not near as far away as Fujisan is from Tokyo.

I used to be able to see snow on Mt Diablo from my bedroom window at 5th and Hedding in San Jose. It's not really a single peak nor very tall, but it's still quite nice.
posted by oneirodynia at 5:39 PM on December 19, 2022

But I guess it doesn't qualify because I've never seen touristy stuff with Mt Diablo looming behind San Jose, but don't they do that with Portland and Mount Hood?
posted by Rash at 7:53 PM on December 19, 2022

Oh - Las Vegas has Mount Charleston!
posted by acridrabbit at 12:00 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Sofia (capital of Bulgaria) with Vitosha mountain and Black Peak.
posted by inclined2 at 5:50 AM on December 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Zermatt / The Matterhorn. In fact, if you search for simply "Zermatt" images in your preferred search engine, most of the top results will show the Matterhorn.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 11:52 AM on December 20, 2022

It's ok if the mountain is part of a mountain range, but it's got to have one big peak with a name everyone knows.

I'm not sure if Albuquerque qualifies, everyone calls the big mountain that looms 5,000 feet over the city "The Sandias", and it's technically a mountain range I think. It's possible there are multiple mountains involved that are just all very close together, I'm not sure if there actually need to be multiple mountains to have a mountain range, I think the largest might technically be called Sandia Peak so maybe that counts because it's still called Sandia.

I'd say the deciding factor of whether a city qualifies to be on this list is that you can easily find touristy stuff that's got one big mountain on it and that mountain isn't necessarily named on the merchandise because everyone knows it's Mt Rainier or whatever.

Frankly I'm a little confused about this being the deciding factor. But I guess you can probably buy touristy stuff with a picture of the mountain on it that doesn't have the name spelled out, but it might have balloons or chiles or cactus on it too, generally tourism here doesn't focus on "hey a mountain", but there's a tram that goes up which also gets a lot of tourists too. Whether or not one can "easily" find things with just the mountain depends on how you define easily I guess, I don't spend a lot of time shopping for tourist stuff.
posted by yohko at 5:45 PM on December 20, 2022

Volcán de Agua doesn’t exactly loom over Guatemala City, but it completely dominated the view in Antigua.

Monterrey, Mexico has a bunch of mountains nearby. Topo Chico is the most prominent and isolated.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 11:35 PM on December 20, 2022

Cities on the northeast coast of Puerto Rico like Luquillo, Río Grande, and Loíza have Pico El Yunque looming over them, which is readily identifiable because it’s almost always shrouded in clouds, and it was the dwelling place of the supreme god Yukiyú (or Yúcahu) in Taíno mythology.
posted by mubba at 7:30 AM on December 21, 2022 [1 favorite]