Because it is higher than all its neighbouring peaks by about 500 m, it can be seen from a great distance, including from the Piedmontese plateau, the Langhe, the Theodulpass in the Zermatt ski area, the col du Galibier and the summits of the Mont Blanc massif.

[citation needed] In Italy it is also known as Il Re di Pietra ("The Stone King") because of its prominence within the western Italian Alps.

On the northern slopes of Monte Viso are the headwaters of the Po, the longest Italian river, the so-called Pian del Re (2,020 m).

The northern sector of the group, from the Punta Gastaldi to the Col de la Traversette, is located on the French border.

Dante mentions the mountain in a long simile in Canto XVI of the Inferno as the source of the Montone River: Come quel fiume c'ha proprio cammino prima dal Monte Viso 'nver' levante, da la sinistra costa d'Apennino Chaucer cites the mountain in the prologue to the Clerk's Tale in his Canterbury Tales, in a passage adapted from Petrarch's Latin version of his "Tale of Griselda": A prohemie, in which discryveth he, Pemond, and of Saluces the contree, And speketh of Appenyn, the hilles hye, That been the boundes of West Lumbardye, And of Mount Vesulus in special, Wher as the Poo out of a welle smal, Taketh his first spryngyng and his cours That eastward ay encresseth in his cours To Emele-ward, to Ferare and Venyse; The which a long thyng were to devyse.