Abstract Earth’s hottest near‐surface air temperatures provide a benchmark for the upper tail of land heat extremes. Using CMIP6 simulations, we evaluate historical extremes against Berkeley Earth and project future changes under SSP2‐4.5 and abrupt‐4 × CO2 ${text{CO} }{2}$. Historical fidelity is assessed from the spatial pattern of the 99th percentile of daily maximum temperature p99Tmax $left(p99,{T}{max }right)$ over land using centered RMSE, mean bias, and spatial R2 ${R}^{2}$. We analyze three annual tropical land indices: tropical land‐mean temperature TTL $left({T}{TL}right)$, daily‐mean temperature on the hottest day each year TDM $left({T}{DM}right)$, and the maximum daily‐maximum temperature TDX $left({T}{DX}right)$. Across models, TDM ${T}{DM}$ and TDX ${T}{DX}$ warm 30%–40% faster than TTL ${T}{TL}$ in transient trends and equilibrium responses, consistent with amplified upper‐tail warming. Hotspot‐frequency maps of the annual global land maximum show persistence in subtropical arid and semi‐arid regions. We define a fixed‐threshold record‐like benchmark for hottest‐land temperature and relate exceedance likelihood to tropical land warming; pooled fits show exceedance odds rise ∼35% per 1° $1{}^{circ}$C.