Santa Monica, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
380 ft 115 m280 ft 85 m240 ft 70 m140 ft 45 m47 ft 14 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
Santa Monica sits at about 150 ft (45 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
150 ft 45 m
most residents: 72–230 ft
Lowest
0 ft 0 m
at sea level on the Pacific Ocean
Highest
380 ft 115 m
at the foot of the Baldwin Hills
Average
150 ft 45 m
all land inside city limits
Santa Monica spans about 380 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 | 150 ft45 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, at the foot of the Baldwin Hills | 380 ft115 m |
| Lowest point Where the land meets the Pacific Ocean | 0 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Santa Monica | 100 ft30 m |
| Airport (LAX) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 5.4 mi southeast of the city limits | 128 ft39 m |
| Average of all land | 150 ft45 m |
| Nearest peak Saddle Peak, 8.2 mi west of the city limits (NGS survey) | 2,807 ft856 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
3.9 mi south to north through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Los Angeles County, California, United States
- Population
- 90,729 2024 est.
- Land area
- 8.4 sq mi + 8.8 sq mi water
- Density
- 10,790 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 34.0195° N, 118.4912° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Pacific Border
- Drains to
- Pacific Ocean
- Airport
- Los Angeles International (LAX) 128 ft
- ZIP codes 5
- 90401 90402 90403 90404 90405
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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
- Topanga1,240 ft
- View Park-Windsor Hills290 ft
- West Hollywood280 ft
- Beverly Hills220 ft
- Ladera Heights170 ft
- Santa Monica150 ft
- Inglewood120 ft
- El Segundo120 ft
- Lennox79 ft
- Culver City66 ft
- Marina del Rey23 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California1,219th highest of 1,622
- Towns in Los Angeles County101st highest of 142
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Mount Lukens5,076 ft
- Oat Mountain3,765 ft
- Boney Mountain2,990 ft
- Saddle Peak2,807 ft
- San Pedro Hill1,480 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).
- 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.