> Wikipedia seems to treat sea level as being its true "base" as a sort of special case so it still comes in at #1 This is due to the definition of prominence,

> Wikipedia seems to treat sea level as being its true "base" as a sort of special case so it still comes in at #1 This is due to the definition of prominence, which is roughly "how far down do you have to go from the summit before you can go up to a higher point." This is undefined for the highest mountain, since there is no higher mountain to go up to, so height above sea level is used instead.