Helena, AL Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
800 ft 245 m660 ft 200 m590 ft 180 m450 ft 140 m310 ft 95 m240 ft 75 m
Contours every 200 ft, bold every 1,000 ft
USGS 3DEP · U.S. Census Bureau
How to use this mapviews, tools and data
- Elevation
- Ground colored by height from green (lowest) to white (highest), with contour lines every 40–500 ft (USGS data).
- Satellite
- A 2016 satellite photo at 33 ft (10 m) detail; contours off.
- 3D
- Tilt and turn the terrain; hills are raised 1.5×, or set ×1 for true height.
- Click or tap anywhere
- The exact elevation of that spot in ft and m.
- Measure
- Pick two points for the climb, descent and grade along a straight line.
- City area
- Fades everything outside the official city limits (US Census).
Elevation Data
Helena sits at about 480 ft (145 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
480 ft 145 m
most residents: 420–620 ft
Lowest
240 ft 75 m
near the middle
Highest
800 ft 245 m
on the west side
Average
500 ft 155 m
all land inside city limits
Helena spans about 560 ft of height, so no single spot tells the whole story. The ruler shows where its people live, and where the other numbers you'll see come from.
| Figure | Elevation |
|---|---|
| Typical Where people live: half of residents higher, half lower | 480 ft145 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the west side | 800 ft245 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, near the middle | 240 ft75 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Helena | 420 ft125 m |
| Airport (EKY) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 0.3 mi west of the city limits | 700 ft213 m |
| Average of all land | 500 ft155 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
7.3 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Shelby and Jefferson counties, Alabama, United States
- Population
- 22,200 2024 est.
- Land area
- 24.9 sq mi + 0.3 sq mi water
- Density
- 892 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 33.2962° N, 86.8436° W
- Time zone
- Central UTC−6 / −5
- Landform region
- Valley and Ridge
- Drains to
- Cahaba River → Alabama River → Mobile River → Gulf of America
- Airport
- Bessemer Ntl (EKY) 700 ft
- ZIP codes 2
- 35022 35080
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WebP, 1200 × 900. Free to use: credit “ElevationOf.com” with a link to this page.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS, FAA
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
- Pea Ridge700 ft
- Vestavia Hills660 ft
- Hoover610 ft
- McCalla550 ft
- Indian Springs Village550 ft
- Lipscomb540 ft
- Alabaster530 ft
- Bessemer520 ft
- Pelham520 ft
- Brantleyville490 ft
- Helena480 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Alabama318th highest of 595
- Towns in Shelby County19th highest of 24
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Cheaha Mountain2,413 ft
- Johnson Mountain1,170 ft
- Muscoda Mountain800 ft
- Potato Hill, Jefferson County790 ft
- Bee Mountain, Jefferson County780 ft
How we measure
- Typical elevation: the population-weighted median: every 2020 Census block inside the city limits, at its USGS 3DEP height, weighted by the people who live there. Half of residents live higher, half lower.
- Lowest, highest, average: USGS 3DEP bare-earth heights on a 1 arc-second (≈100 ft, 30 m) grid, land only, inside the Census city limits (TIGER, Jan 1 2026).
- Pits: the lowest point is the lowest ground outside closed hollows (quarry floors, mine pits, terrain-model artifacts): any hollow under 0.4 sq mi (1 km²), and any hollow under 2 sq mi (5 km²) whose floor is more than 100 ft (30 m) below its rim; and outside patches below sea level of under 0.4 sq mi (1 km²). The single lowest 3DEP cell, 220 ft at 33.3076° N, 86.8318° W, is in such a hollow or patch and is not counted.
- Nearby Places: nearby towns and rankings use each town's typical elevation, so every town is compared like for like. Rankings count every city, town, township and census-designated place, including places inside a town. Peaks and hills: the nearest summits with at least 980 ft (300 m) of prominence within 62 mi (100 km), then federal (GNIS) summits within 16 mi (25 km) when there are fewer than 5; each is the 3DEP top on a ~7 ft (2 m) window, or the NGS published height when a usable survey mark sits within 160 ft (50 m) of it (shown as published).
- Rounding: computed heights are rounded to 10 ft (5 m), or to 1 ft (1 m) under 100 ft; 3DEP is good to about a meter, not a foot. Published figures (FAA airport elevation, NGS survey heights) are shown as their publisher gives them.
- Datum: North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD 88). NGS plans to replace NAVD 88 with a new datum (NAPGD2022); heights will then shift slightly.
- Sources: USGS 3DEP, GNIS, Watershed Boundary Dataset and physiographic provinces; U.S. Census Bureau (boundaries, 2020 blocks, 2024 population estimates, Gazetteer areas, ZIP code areas); FAA airport data; BTS time zones; NOAA NGS survey heights. All public domain.