Carstensz Pyramid

Carstensz Pyramid is the highest mountain in Australia and Oceania. It is the eight summit in the Seven summits project (7 summits on 7 tallest mounatins on 7 Continets). Carstensz Pyramid is situated in west Papua (now named Papua province Indonesia). This Indonesian Province was called Irian Jaya till 2005. It lies in New Guinea, which is the world"s second largest island.

Carstensz Pyramid, called Puncak Jaya by some, and Puncak Jaya Kesuma or only Jaya Kesuma by others, is located to the west of the central highland called Jayawijaya and Sudirman Mountains. It is the tallest mountain in Australia and Oceania. Technically this means that Carstensz Pyramid is the tallest mountain between America and the Himalayas.

Officially it carries the name of its discoverer – of John Carstensz, who was a Dutch sea-farer. In 1623 he brought news to Europe about the snowbound mountain right on the equator, but no one believed him. He was the first European to see Carstensz Pyramid with his own eyes.

Indonesian communists called it Puncak Jaya (the summit of victory), even though this name belonged to a different summit which was considered to be the highest (Nga Pulu). Yet another name for Carstensz Pyramid which is also often used, is Jaya Kesuma. This name is used in books published by Mapala University. However, these days Indonesia uses (rather inconsistently) both names of the mountain – Carstensz Pyramid and Puncak Jaya.

Sometimes you can run into misspelled „names“ used when referring to the Carstensz Pyramid, these include Karstens , Carstens, Carstenz, Carstenzs, Carstesz, Carstes, Carstez, Karstensz, Karstenz, Karstesz, Karstes, Karstez or Piramid. However, these all are typos. The only correct name is Carstensz Pyramid. Sometimes, the second name for Carstensz Puncak Jaya is mispelled and following incorrect forms are used instead: Puncak Jaja or Puncak Jaia. The most frequent typos are undoubtedly Karstens and Carstens. The former typo stems from the name of the Carstensz Pyramid discoverer, who is sometimes spelled as Jan Karstens.