Watsonville, CA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
840 ft 255 m630 ft 195 m530 ft 160 m320 ft 100 m110 ft 35 m6 ft 2 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
Watsonville sits at about 55 ft (17 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
55 ft 17 m
most residents: 30–110 ft
Lowest
6 ft 2 m
on the southwest side
Highest
840 ft 255 m
at the foot of the Sierra Azul
Average
76 ft 23 m
all land inside city limits
Watsonville spans about 834 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 | 55 ft17 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, at the foot of the Sierra Azul | 840 ft255 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the southwest side | 6 ft2 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Watsonville | 32 ft10 m |
| Airport (WVI) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways | 163 ft50 m |
| Average of all land | 76 ft23 m |
| Nearest peak Loma Prieta, 7.0 mi north of the city limits (NGS survey) | 3,792 ft1,156 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
2.0 mi south to north through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Santa Cruz County, California, United States
- Population
- 51,320 2024 est.
- Land area
- 6.8 sq mi + 0.1 sq mi water
- Density
- 7,563 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 36.9102° N, 121.7569° W
- Time zone
- Pacific UTC−8 / −7
- Landform region
- Pacific Border
- Drains to
- Pacific Ocean
- Airport
- Watsonville Municipal (WVI) 163 ft
- ZIP codes 2
- 95019 95076
⤓ 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
- Corralitos390 ft
- Aptos Hills-Larkin Valley380 ft
- Elkhorn260 ft
- Freedom160 ft
- Amesti150 ft
- La Selva Beach150 ft
- Interlaken130 ft
- Las Lomas120 ft
- Watsonville55 ft
- Pajaro29 ft
- Pajaro Dunes16 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in California1,466th highest of 1,622
- Towns in Santa Cruz County27th highest of 30
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Copernicus Peak4,360 ft
- Black Mountain, Santa Clara County3,955 ft
- Loma Prieta3,792 ft
- Mount Toro3,564 ft
- Mount Bielawski3,234 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.