Elevation finder

How high above the sea is a place? Search for it, use your location, or click anywhere on the map, and read the elevation in metres and feet.

How to use it

  1. Type a place, press My location, or click the map.
  2. Read the elevation in metres and feet.
  3. Click anywhere else on the map to read the height there. Drag the pin to probe around.

5 practical uses

  1. Check the height of a house, a plot or a campsite.
  2. Find the elevation of a road pass or a trailhead.
  3. Check a spot for flood risk by its height above a river.
  4. Set the altitude on a barometer, a watch or a drone.
  5. Compare the heights of two places.

The maths behind it

The elevation service reads a digital elevation model: a raster of heights with cells of 30 to 90 m from radar and satellite surveys (SRTM, Copernicus). The height at a point is interpolated between the four cells around it. The air pressure shown uses the barometric formula p = 1013.25 (1 − 2.25577×10⁻⁵ h)^5.25588 hPa.

Where the heights come from

Heights come from the routing engine's elevation service (Valhalla at FOSSGIS, on SRTM and similar 30 m and 90 m models) and, if that is busy, from Open-Meteo's copy of the Copernicus 90 m model. They are the height of the ground in a cell of that size, so a point on a cliff edge or a narrow ridge can read some metres off, and buildings and trees are not included. Sea is 0.

For the heights along a route, see the elevation profile; for a GPX track's climb, the GPX viewer.

More tools

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Questions and answers

Where do the heights come from?

From a digital elevation model with cells of 30 to 90 m, served by the Valhalla elevation service and, as a fallback, Open-Meteo.

Does it include buildings?

No. It is the height of the ground. Trees and buildings are not in the model.

Why is a point on a cliff off by some metres?

The model gives one height per cell, so a point on a cliff edge or a narrow ridge takes the average of the cell.

Embed this tool on your website

Paste this code where the tool should appear. It shows the tool alone, without this page's text, and links back here. It is free to use; the map data credit stays on the map.

<iframe src="https://waymorphic.com/tools/elevation-finder?embed=1" width="100%" height="760" style="border:0;border-radius:12px;max-width:100%" loading="lazy" allow="geolocation; fullscreen; clipboard-write" title="Elevation finder – Waymorphic Map"></iframe>

Change height to suit your page. To open the tool with a place already set, add the settings from this page's address bar (the part after #) to the end of the src. The embedded tool asks the visitor's browser for their location only when they press the button, and the allow attribute lets that work inside the frame.