Umling La: What Is the Highest Motorable Road on Earth?

The highest motorable road on Earth is the new road over Mig La in Ladakh, India, completed by the Border Roads Organisation in October 2025 at 19,400 ft (5,913 m). It dethroned Umling La, the Guinness World Record holder at 19,024 ft (5,798 m) since November 2021, a listing Guinness still carries as its published record. Key facts

• Guinness certified Umling La at exactly 5,798.251 m (19,024 ft 0.73 in) on 9 November 2021, crediting the Border Roads Organisation's Project Himank and 753 BRTF. (Guinness World Records)
• The 52-km Chisumle–Demchok tarmac road through Umling La beat the previous record: a road to Bolivia's Uturuncu volcano at 18,953 ft. (Press Information Bureau)
• India's defence ministry notes the Umling La road sits higher than both Everest base camps (South 17,598 ft; North 16,900 ft) and the Siachen Glacier (17,700 ft). (Press Information Bureau)
• In winter the temperature at Umling La drops to −40°C and the oxygen level is almost 50% below normal. (Press Information Bureau)
• On 1 October 2025, a BRO team led by Brigadier Vishal Srivastava, Chief Engineer of Project Himank, reached Mig La at 19,400 ft and hoisted the national and BRO flags. (CarToQ)
• The 64-km Likaru–Mig La–Fukche road runs just 3 km from the Line of Actual Control; the project cost about Rs 520 crore and was finished in just over two years. (Defence Stories, CarToQ)

Which road currently holds the highest motorable crown?

As of October 2026, the honest answer has two parts. The physically highest road is the new Likaru–Mig La–Fukche road in eastern Ladakh, which crests Mig La at 19,400 ft (5,913 m). The Indian Army announced it in October 2025 with the words that its own record had fallen: Project Himank had "surpassed its own Guinness World Record set at Umling La (19,024 ft)".

The official record book, however, has not caught up. Guinness World Records' published listing, current at the time of writing, still names Umling La Pass at 5,798.251 m, the record achieved on 9 November 2021. So if you ask "what does Guinness say," the answer is Umling La; if you ask "what is the highest road anyone has actually built," the answer is Mig La, by 376 ft.

How did Umling La set the record in 2021?

The road through Umling La was built to connect the villages of Chisumle and Demchok in the Chumar sector of eastern Ladakh, a 52-km black-topped road across a pass most maps had barely heard of. The Border Roads Organisation completed it in 2021, and after a four-month verification process involving five different surveyors, Guinness certified the altitude at 5,798.251 m on 9 November 2021. The certificate was presented to the BRO's Director General, Lieutenant General Rajeev Chaudhry, in a virtual ceremony on 16 November. The scale of the number is easier to grasp by comparison. The road is higher than the South Base Camp of Everest in Nepal (17,598 ft) and the North Base Camp in Tibet (16,900 ft), higher than the Siachen Glacier (17,700 ft), and higher than Khardung La (17,582 ft), the pass that tourist brochures had marketed as the world's highest for years. The previous genuine record, a mining road to Bolivia's Uturuncu volcano at 18,953 ft, was beaten by just 71 ft. Building it meant working winters of −40°C with roughly half the normal oxygen, conditions in which diesel engines lose power, hydraulics fail, and concrete needs special treatment to cure.

What changed at Mig La in October 2025?

Mig La is another product of the same builder. BRO's Project Himank began work on the Likaru–Mig La–Fukche alignment on 15 August 2023, budgeted at about Rs 520 crore, and planned for a three-year job. The critical section was finished in just over two years, and on 1 October 2025 the team reached the 19,400 ft summit. The new road gives year-round connectivity to Fukche village, a settlement near the Line of Actual Control with China that was previously cut off in winter. For the armed forces it forms a third axis for moving personnel and equipment into the Hanle sector; for locals it means better access to healthcare, education and markets. For drivers, the route from Leh runs roughly 230 to 260 km and takes 8 to 10 hours in good conditions, and being a border zone it requires Inner Line Permits, with civilian access possibly limited to escorted convoys at first.

Notably, the BRO has now built 11 of the 14 highest motorable passes in the world. The contest for the highest road is, at the moment, an Indian in-house competition.

Pass	Altitude	Status
Mig La	19,400 ft (5,913 m)	Completed October 2025; physically the highest road built
Umling La	19,024 ft (5,798 m)	Guinness record holder since November 2021; listing still published
Mana Pass	18,406 ft (5,610 m)	Uttarakhand; among India's highest civilian-accessible passes
Dungri La (Marisimik La)	18,314 ft (5,582 m)	Near Pangong Lake, Ladakh
Khardung La	17,582 ft (5,359 m)	Long marketed as the world's highest; superseded years ago

What most people get wrong about the world's highest road

The most common error is repeating "Umling La is the highest" without a date. It was true from 2021 to 2025, and it remains the name on the Guinness certificate. But the road over Mig La is 376 ft higher, and the organisation that built both says so itself. The second error is older: "Khardung La is the highest motorable pass in the world." Travel companies printed that claim for decades, and it survives in guidebooks and signboards. At 17,582 ft it sits more than 1,400 ft below Umling La. The third error is treating "motorable" as "a fun weekend drive." At these altitudes the air holds roughly half the oxygen of sea level, altitude sickness is a real risk for the unacclimatized, and the working season for construction is only a few summer months. Guinness's own listing warns that newcomers should acclimatize before crossing. These are strategic border roads first and tourist routes second, a distinction worth keeping in mind before planning a trip to Everest's death zone or anywhere else in the high Himalaya. The Andes may run longer, but no road on Earth climbs higher than the one in Ladakh.

The takeaway

The highest motorable road on Earth is a moving target, and it keeps moving upward by Indian engineering. Umling La's 19,024 ft stood for four years as the certified record; Mig La's 19,400 ft is the new physical ceiling, waiting for the record books to catch up. Whichever name the next certificate carries, both roads stand higher than Everest's base camps, a fact that still surprises almost everyone who hears it. How we made this article: FactSpire researched and drafted it with AI assistance and checked every fact against the sources listed above.