A very popular pastime for hillwalkers and mountaineers in Scotland is to work their way through "The Munros" - the established list of mountain summits that are over 3000 feet (914m) above sea level. Many people set themselves the goal of climbing every Munro on the list but many more simply like to use the list as a guide to help choose hills and mountain ranges to visit.

The list takes its name from Sir Hugh Munro (1856-1919), an early leader of mountaineering in Scotland. Sir Hugh identified what he believed to be all the summits that were 3000 feet or higher and then classified each one as either a separate mountain ("main summit") or a subsidiary peak ("top"). He considered 283 of the 538 summits to be main summits and it is this shorter list that is what we refer to today as "The Munros".

The Munro list has actually been changed several times over the years as corrections and re-assessments have been made. The official list is still maintained by the Scottish Mountaineering Club (SMC) of which Sir Munro was a founder member. The SMC uses the best evidence available to maintain the list - this is generally data provided by the UK Ordnance Survey. Perhaps surprisingly in today's age of satellite measurement and computerised mapping there are still relatively frequent changes to the list, the most recent of which was in September 2009 when Sgurr nan Ceannaichean, south of Glen Carron was removed from the list after its height was more accurately measured as 2,996.8 feet (913.43m). This has brought the total number of Munros back to 283 which is the same number Sir Hugh originally identified, although the list is not identical.

Sadly Sir Hugh died before he could complete his task of climbing all the main summits, missing only two peaks from his list; Carn an Fhidhleir and Carn Cloich-Mhuillin in the Cairngorms, although the latter of these is no longer listed as a Munro on today's list. Sir Hugh Munro also never climbed the "Inaccessible Pinnacle" on the Cuillin on the Isle of Skye, although his own list he classified this as a "top" rather than as a "main summit".

The current list of Munro summits is now on Wikipedia - and is also shown on the map below.
You can view a larger map directly on Google Maps if you prefer or download the munro list for Google Earth.