Maurice Herzog led a French expedition to its summit through the north face in 1950, making it the first eight-thousander to be successfully climbed.

[9] Many streams descending from the slopes of the Annapurna Massif provide water for the agricultural fields and pastures located at lower elevations.

The south face of Annapurna was first climbed in 1970 by Don Whillans and Dougal Haston also without using supplementary oxygen, members of a British expedition led by Chris Bonington that included Ian Clough, who was killed by a falling serac during the descent.

The first summit team, composed of Vera Komarkova and Irene Miller, and Sherpas Mingma Tsering and Chewang Ringjing, reached the top at 3:30 pm on 15 October 1978.

[14] The first solo ascent of the south face was made in October 2007 by Slovenian climber Tomaž Humar;[15][16][17][18] he climbed to the Roc Noir and then to Annapurna East (8,047m).

Climbers killed on the peak include Britons Ian Clough in 1970 and Alex MacIntyre in 1982, Frenchman Pierre Béghin in 1992, Kazakh Anatoli Boukreev in 1997, Spaniard Iñaki Ochoa in 2008,[25] Korean Park Young-seok in 2011[26] and the Finn Samuli Mansikka in 2015.