Aletsch Glacier

The largest glacier in the Alps: about twenty-three kilometres long, 81.7 square kilometres in area, and 15.4 cubic kilometres in volume. Four smaller glaciers converge at Konkordiaplatz, where the ice has been measured at 905 metres thick, before the whole mass runs on towards the Rhône valley and gives rise to the Massa. Like almost every glacier today it is retreating, 1.3 kilometres of length lost since 1980, 3.2 since 1870, and more than 300 metres of thickness. UNESCO listed the Jungfrau-Aletsch area in 2001.