In school, we learned that the highest point in Australia was Mount Kosciuszko. That's an odd name for an Australian landmark—not just because of all the funny consonants, but because Mr. Kosciuszko was a Polish military hero who never came close to setting foot in Australia. But what's really interesting is that Mount Kosciuszko isn't Australia's highest point at all. That distinction actually belongs to a much less famous mountain called Mawson Peak. Kind of.

The most famous Pole on the map.

Tadeusz Kosciuszko was an 18th-century Polish patriot who led uprisings and military campaigns against the more powerful Russian and Prussian armies that were endlessly partitioning his homeland. In June 1776, inspired by news of the American Revolution, he sailed to Philadelphia to join the cause. By 1783, he was a brigadier general, showing the Continental Army innovative new ways to defend military forts from West Point down to the Carolinas. He was so tight with the Founding Fathers that, when he died in 1817, he made Thomas Jefferson the executor of his estate.

Kosciuszko is a big deal on three continents.

Poland loves Kosciuszko, its native son. The Romantic poets loved Kosciuszko, penning ballads and odes about his exploits. And hundreds of places in America are named for him as well: a county in Indiana, a city in Mississippi, and a bridge in New York City. This really ramped up in the twentieth century, with politicians looking to please their Polish-American constituents. The highest point in the Australian Alps was named for Kosciuszko too, because the first man to climb it was Paweł Strzelecki, a Polish explorer. Strzelecki thought the summit looked like Kosciuszko Mound, a monument in Krakow dedicated to the Polish hero.

Australia's highest mountain is 2,400 miles away from Australia.

Mount Kosciuszko is no small peak at 7,310 feet high. But in 1947, Great Britain handed over to the Commonwealth of Australia one of its most remote territories, Heard and McDonald Islands in the southern Indian Ocean. Heard Island is home to Mawson Peak, which is 1,700 feet higher than Kosciuszko. It's also an active volcano that last erupted in 2016. Mainland Australia has no volcanoes, but this little island group has two. (Full disclosure: there are two even higher peaks in the Australian Antarctic Territory, but most of the world doesn't recognize Australia's claim to almost half that continent.)

When is a high point not a high point?

So is Mawson Peak the nation's highest point? On the one hand, it's located on Australian soil. On the other hand, Heard Island is an "external" territory—external to Australia proper, that is. Was Mount McKinley (now called Denali) America's highest point in 1867, when the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia, or did it not take the crown until 1959, when Alaska achieved statehood? If we allow external territories in this conversation, then Britain's highest point isn't Ben Nevis in Scotland; it's Mount Paget in the South Atlantic. The highest point in the Netherlands is Saba, in the Caribbean. It doesn't seem quite right to include these mountains on faraway islands and continents, but it doesn't seem quite right to exclude them, either. Fortunately, it's not a thing you'll ever have to worry about—not unless you're a contestant on Jeopardy, that is.

Explore the world's oddities every week with Ken Jennings, and check out his book Maphead for more geography trivia.