San Carlos, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
910 ft 280 m680 ft 210 m570 ft 175 m340 ft 105 m110 ft 35 m1 ft 0 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.
- City area
- Fades everything outside the official city limits (US Census).
Elevation Data
San Carlos sits at about 120 ft (35 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
120 ft 35 m
most residents: 28–520 ft
Lowest
1 ft 0 m
on the northeast side
Highest
910 ft 280 m
on the southwest side
Average
220 ft 70 m
all land inside city limits
San Carlos spans about 909 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 | 120 ft35 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the southwest side | 910 ft280 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the northeast side | 1 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for San Carlos | 31 ft9 m |
| Airport (SFO) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 8.9 mi northwest of the city limits | 13 ft4 m |
| Average of all land | 220 ft70 m |
| Nearest peak Scarpet Peak, 7.2 mi west of the city limits | 1,930 ft590 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
2.3 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in San Mateo County, California, United States
- Population
- 29,403 2024 est.
- Land area
- 5.4 sq mi
- Density
- 5,433 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 37.5072° N, 122.2605° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Pacific Border
- Drains to
- Pacific Ocean
- Airport
- San Francisco International (SFO) 13 ft
- ZIP codes 1
- 94070
⤓ 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
- Highlands510 ft
- Emerald Lake Hills470 ft
- Woodside450 ft
- Baywood Park430 ft
- Belmont270 ft
- San Carlos120 ft
- Atherton61 ft
- North Fair Oaks28 ft
- Redwood City23 ft
- San Mateo20 ft
- Foster City7 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California1,278th highest of 1,622
- Towns in San Mateo County20th highest of 33
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Mount Bielawski3,234 ft
- Mount Allison2,664 ft
- Sunol Peak2,191 ft
- Rocky Ridge2,020 ft
- Scarpet Peak1,930 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, −12 ft at 37.5129° N, 122.2579° 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.