Nepal has launched a "national pride" project to measure the height of Mount Everest, following in the footsteps of India and China.

The project is partly to ascertain whether a huge earthquake in 2015 affected the height of the world’s tallest mountain, but is also intended for Nepal to catch up with its regional neighbours.

Nepal has never independently measured the height of the mountain, despite it laying claim to the mountain's summit point.

Over the years the actual height of Everest has been debated by geologists and mountaineers - the crux of disagreement being whether the snow atop the mountain rock should be included.

The official height stands at 8,848 metres (29,028 feet), determined by an Indian expedition in 1955. But the first mission to measure it was in 1847, led by Andrew Waugh of the Indian Royal Surveyor General, when India was under British rule. The team found “Peak 15” - the name under which the mountain went by then - was 8,840 m (29,002 feet).

In 1999, the National Geographic Society and Boston's Museum of Science used satellite technology to measure the “snow height” and concluded the mountain actually stood 29,035 feet high. And finally, a Chinese mission in 2005 concluded the “rock height” is actually 29,016 feet metres.