Aptos, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
910 ft 275 m680 ft 210 m570 ft 175 m350 ft 105 m130 ft 40 m20 ft 6 m
Contours every 100 ft, bold every 500 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.
- Area
- Fades everything outside the official CDP boundary (US Census).
Elevation Data
Aptos sits at about 230 ft (70 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
230 ft 70 m
most residents: 160–380 ft
Lowest
20 ft 6 m
near the middle
Highest
910 ft 275 m
at the foot of the Sierra Azul
Average
330 ft 100 m
all land inside the CDP boundary
Aptos spans about 890 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 | 230 ft70 m |
| Highest point Inside the CDP boundary, at the foot of the Sierra Azul | 910 ft275 m |
| Lowest point Inside the CDP boundary, near the middle | 20 ft6 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Aptos | 110 ft30 m |
| Airport (WVI) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 5.2 mi southeast of the CDP boundary | 163 ft50 m |
| Average of all land | 330 ft100 m |
| Nearest peak Loma Prieta, 6.9 mi north of the CDP boundary (NGS survey) | 3,792 ft1,156 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
3.1 mi south to north through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- Unincorporated community (census-designated place) in Santa Cruz County, California, United States
- Population
- 6,664 2020 Census
- Land area
- 6.6 sq mi
- Density
- 1,013 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 36.9772° N, 121.8994° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Pacific Border
- Drains to
- Pacific Ocean
- Airport
- Watsonville Municipal (WVI) 163 ft
- ZIP codes 1
- 95003
⤓ Download this map
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
- Day Valley630 ft
- Corralitos390 ft
- Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley380 ft
- Aptos230 ft
- Soquel160 ft
- La Selva Beach150 ft
- Rio del Mar150 ft
- Seacliff140 ft
- Capitola89 ft
- Live Oak84 ft
- Pleasure Point45 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California1,064th highest of 1,622
- Towns in Santa Cruz County14th highest of 30
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Copernicus Peak4,360 ft
- Black Mountain, Santa Clara County3,955 ft
- Loma Prieta3,792 ft
- Mount Bielawski3,234 ft
- Mount Allison2,664 ft
How we measure
- Typical elevation: the population-weighted median: every 2020 Census block inside the CDP boundary, 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 CDP boundary (TIGER, Jan 1 2026).
- 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.
- Aptos is an unincorporated community; figures cover the census-designated place, a statistical area.
- Sources: USGS 3DEP, GNIS, Watershed Boundary Dataset and physiographic provinces; U.S. Census Bureau (boundaries, 2020 blocks, Gazetteer areas, ZIP code areas); FAA airport data; BTS time zones; NOAA NGS survey heights. All public domain.