Santa Maria, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
430 ft 130 m360 ft 110 m320 ft 95 m240 ft 75 m170 ft 50 m130 ft 40 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
Santa Maria sits at about 220 ft (65 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
220 ft 65 m
most residents: 200–250 ft
Lowest
130 ft 40 m
on the west side
Highest
430 ft 130 m
on the southeast side
Average
220 ft 70 m
all land inside city limits
Santa Maria spans about 300 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 | 220 ft65 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the southeast side | 430 ft130 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the west side | 130 ft40 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Santa Maria | 220 ft65 m |
| Airport (SMX) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways | 261 ft80 m |
| Average of all land | 220 ft70 m |
| Nearest peak Mount Lospe, 6.1 mi southwest of the city limits | 1,650 ft505 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
7.5 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Santa Barbara County, California, United States
- Population
- 111,346 2024 est.
- Land area
- 22.8 sq mi + 0.6 sq mi water
- Density
- 4,881 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 34.9530° N, 120.4357° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Pacific Border
- Drains to
- Pacific Ocean
- Airport
- Santa Maria Pub/Capt G Allan Hancock Field (SMX) 261 ft
- ZIP codes 3
- 93454 93455 93458
⤓ 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
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California1,081st highest of 1,622
- Towns in Santa Barbara County18th highest of 28
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Tepusquet Peak3,240 ft
- Hi Mountain3,190 ft
- Pine Ridge, San Luis Obispo County3,190 ft
- Oak Mountain2,060 ft
- Mount Lospe1,650 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, 130 ft at 34.9487° N, 120.5071° 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. All public domain.