Kilimanjaro is Africa's highest mountain. It consists of three large overlapping stratovolcanoes constructed along a NW-SE trend. The ice-capped, 5895-m-high summit rises 5200 m above the surrounding plains, making Kili one of the largest free-standing mountains in the world.

The older cone of Shira forms the broad WNW shoulder of Kilimanjaro, and the extensively dissected Mawenzi forms a prominent, sharp-topped peak on the ESE flank. Numerous satellitic cones occupy a rift zone to the NW and SE of Kibo, the central stratovolcano. A 2.4 x 3.6 km caldera gives the summit of Kibo an elongated, broad profile. Most of Kilimanjaro was constructed during the Pleistocene, but a group of youthful-looking nested summit craters are of apparent Holocene age.