Largest tropical glacier

Earth’s two largest remaining ice caps in the tropics are both found in the Peruvian Andes. From the early 1980s, the record was held by the Quelccaya Ice Cap, which had long been recognized as the largest ice body in the tropics. However, owing to its high rate of retreat, it has now been surpassed by the Coropuna Ice Cap, which had a surface area of 42.3 square kilometres (16.3 square miles) as of 2021.

The Coropuna Ice Cap represents the largest source of freshwater for the region of Arequipa, which relies on snow and ice melt to support its population of over 1 million people. Recent work has shown that it has shrunk by 0.37 square kilometres (0.14 square miles) per year since the 1980s.