Desert Center, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
1,140 ft 345 m980 ft 300 m900 ft 275 m740 ft 225 m580 ft 180 m500 ft 155 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
Desert Center sits at about 700 ft (215 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
700 ft 215 m
most residents: 590–870 ft
Lowest
500 ft 155 m
on the northeast side
Highest
1,140 ft 345 m
at the foot of the Chuckwalla Mountains
Average
700 ft 215 m
all land inside the CDP boundary
Desert Center spans about 640 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 | 700 ft215 m |
| Highest point Inside the CDP boundary, at the foot of the Chuckwalla Mountains | 1,140 ft345 m |
| Lowest point Inside the CDP boundary, on the northeast side | 500 ft155 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Desert Center | 910 ft275 m |
| Average of all land | 700 ft215 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
8.2 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- Unincorporated community (census-designated place) in Riverside County, California, United States
- Population
- 256 2020 Census
- Land area
- 30.4 sq mi
- Density
- 8.4 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 33.7125° N, 115.4022° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Basin and Range
- Drains to
- Ford Dry Lake basin (does not reach the sea)
- ZIP codes 1
- 92239
⤓ Download this map
WebP, 1200 × 900. Free to use: credit “ElevationOf.com” with a link to this page.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
- Desert Center700 ft
- Mesa Verde390 ft
- North Shore−85 ft
- Thermal−120 ft
- Niland−140 ft
- Salton City−160 ft
- Mecca−170 ft
- Calipatria−170 ft
- Desert Shores−210 ft
- Salton Sea Beach−220 ft
- Bombay Beach−220 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California629th highest of 1,622
- Towns in Riverside County52nd highest of 75
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Rabbit Peak6,650 ft
- Queen Mountain5,680 ft
- Twentynine Palms Mountain4,565 ft
- Black Butte, Riverside County4,500 ft
- Pinto Mountain3,985 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).
- 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, 500 ft at 33.7546° N, 115.3101° 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.
- Desert Center 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); BTS time zones; NOAA NGS survey heights. All public domain.