The Blue Mountains rise to their summits from the coastal plain in the space of about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi), thus producing one of the steepest general gradients in the world.

The temperature decreases from around 27 °C (80 °F) at sea level to 5 °C (40 °F) at the Blue Mountain Peak, just 16 km (9.9 mi) inland.

[citation needed] The mountains are home to the world's second-largest butterfly and the largest in the Americas, the Homerus swallowtail.

[5] When Jamaica's economy was dominated by plantation slavery, some slaves escaped to the mountains to live independently, where they were known as Jamaican Maroons.

Today, the famous Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee, which commands premium prices on world markets, is cultivated between 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi) and 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) above sea level,[6] while higher slopes are preserved as forest.