San Mateo, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
620 ft 190 m470 ft 145 m390 ft 120 m230 ft 70 m78 ft 24 m0 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 Mateo sits at about 20 ft (6 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
20 ft 6 m
most residents: 6–150 ft
Lowest
0 ft 0 m
at sea level on San Francisco Bay
Highest
620 ft 190 m
on the south side
Average
93 ft 28 m
all land inside city limits
San Mateo spans about 620 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 | 20 ft6 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the south side | 620 ft190 m |
| Lowest point Where the land meets San Francisco Bay | 0 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for San Mateo | 45 ft14 m |
| Airport (SFO) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 2.6 mi northwest of the city limits | 13 ft4 m |
| Average of all land | 93 ft28 m |
| Nearest peak Scarpet Peak, 4.6 mi southwest of the city limits | 1,930 ft590 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
5.8 mi south to north through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in San Mateo County, California, United States
- Population
- 103,006 2024 est.
- Land area
- 12.1 sq mi + 3.7 sq mi water
- Density
- 8,501 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 37.5630° N, 122.3255° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Pacific Border
- Drains to
- Pacific Ocean
- Airport
- San Francisco International (SFO) 13 ft
- ZIP codes 4
- 94401 94402 94403 94404
⤓ Download this map
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS, FAA
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
- Highlands510 ft
- Baywood Park430 ft
- Hillsborough300 ft
- Belmont270 ft
- San Bruno140 ft
- San Carlos120 ft
- Millbrae96 ft
- Burlingame37 ft
- Redwood City23 ft
- San Mateo20 ft
- Foster City7 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California1,560th highest of 1,622
- Towns in San Mateo County31st highest of 33
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Mount Allison2,664 ft
- Sunol Peak2,191 ft
- Rocky Ridge2,020 ft
- Scarpet Peak1,930 ft
- Vollmer Peak1,916 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, −4 ft at 37.5699° N, 122.2960° W, is in such a hollow or patch and is not counted; this coastal land's lowest point is sea level on the coast.
- 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.