County Maps US

Tools Elevation, time and sun

What Is My Elevation?

One tap. The position comes from your device and the height from a terrain model, which is more consistent than a phone’s own GPS altitude.

How to use it

  1. Press "Find my elevation" and allow the browser to use your location.
  2. Read the elevation in feet and metres; a negative number means below sea level.
  3. If your device reports its own GPS altitude, it is shown separately for comparison.
  4. Press "Check again" after moving, or if the first fix was rough.

How it works

Your browser gives the page a latitude and longitude (from GPS on a phone, or from Wi-Fi and network signals on a laptop, which can be hundreds of metres off). That one point is sent to the Open-Meteo elevation API, which returns the ground height from the Copernicus GLO-90 terrain model. Nothing is sent until you press the button, and the position is not stored or written to the address bar.

The headline number is therefore the height of the ground under you, not the height of the floor you are standing on in a tall building. A phone GPS altitude, when the device reports one, is shown beside it: it is computed from satellite geometry, is typically 10 to 50 metres off, and may be relative to the WGS84 ellipsoid rather than sea level.

Questions

Why is the location prompt needed?
The page needs a coordinate to look up. Nothing works without it, and no address is typed. If you decline, use the Elevation Finder and type a place instead.
Why does my elevation look wrong indoors or on a laptop?
Without GPS the browser estimates position from nearby Wi-Fi networks, which can put you a street or two away. The stated accuracy radius tells you how rough the fix was.
Is the number my altitude or the ground height?
The ground height at your position from a terrain model. On the 30th floor the ground is still what is measured.

All map tools, free and without an account. Location data is processed in your browser and by the open geocoding services named on the sources page; nothing is stored by this site.