page_title: Dufourspitze
section_title: Naming
hierarchical_section_title: Dufourspitze / Naming
caption_attribution_description: English: General Guillaume Henri Dufour Deutsch: General Guillaume Henri Dufour
context_page_description: The Dufourspitze is the highest peak of Monte Rosa, a huge ice-covered mountain massif in the Alps. Dufourspitze is the highest mountain peak of both Switzerland and the Pennine Alps and is also the second-highest mountain of the Alps and Western Europe, after Mont Blanc. It is located between Switzerland and Italy.
  Following a long series of attempts beginning in the early nineteenth century, Monte Rosa's summit, then still called Höchste Spitze, was first reached on 1 August, the Swiss National celebration day, in 1855 from Zermatt by a party of eight climbers led by three guides: Matthäus and Johannes Zumtaugwald, Ulrich Lauener, Christopher and James Smyth, Charles Hudson, John Birkbeck and Edward Stephenson.
context_section_description: The peak is distinguished by the name Dufourspitze (in German, lit. Dufour Peak; French: Pointe Dufour, Italian: Punta Dufour). This replaced the former name Höchste Spitze (English: Highest Peak) that was indicated on the Swiss maps before the Federal Council, on January 28, 1863, decided to rename the mountain in honor of Guillaume-Henri Dufour. Dufour was a Swiss engineer, topographer, co-founder of the Red Cross and army general who led the Sonderbund campaign. This decision followed the completion of the Dufour Map, a series of military topographical maps created under the command of Dufour.
  The point just 80 m (260 ft) east of the Dufourspitze and only 2 metres lower, the Dunantspitze, was renamed in 2014 in honor of Henry Dunant, the main founder of the Red Cross.
caption: Guillaume-Henri Dufour
exif: {}