Black Hawk County, IA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
1,030 ft 315 m970 ft 295 m940 ft 285 m880 ft 265 m820 ft 250 m790 ft 240 m
Contours every 500 ft, bold every 2,500 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.
- County area
- Fades everything outside the official county boundary (US Census).
Elevation Data
Black Hawk County averages about 920 ft (280 m) above sea level across all its land. Its ground runs from 790 ft on the southeast side to 1,030 ft on the southwest side.
Average elevation
920 ft 280 m
all land inside the county
Highest
1,030 ft 315 m
on the southwest side
Lowest
790 ft 240 m
on the southeast side
Black Hawk County spans about 240 ft of height, so no single spot tells the whole story. The ruler shows where most of its land lies, and where the other numbers you'll see come from.
| Figure | Elevation |
|---|---|
| Average of all land | 920 ft280 m |
| Highest point Inside the county, on the southwest side | 1,030 ft315 m |
| Lowest point Inside the county, on the southeast side | 790 ft240 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
24 mi west to east through Waterloo.
Topographic Map
- Location
- County in Iowa, United States
- Population
- 132,348 2024 est.
- Land area
- 565.8 sq mi + 6.9 sq mi water
- Density
- 234 per sq mi
- Time zone
- Central UTC−6 / −5
- Landform region
- Central Lowland
- Drains to
- Gulf of America
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS
Nearby Places
Neighboring counties sharing a border, by average
- Grundy County1,020 ft
- Bremer County1,010 ft
- Butler County990 ft
- Buchanan County990 ft
- Tama County940 ft
- Black Hawk County920 ft
- Benton County880 ft
Rankings by average elevation
- Counties in Iowa72nd highest of 99
- Counties in the United States1,558th highest of 3,151
All 12 towns in Black Hawk County by typical elevation
- Jesup partly980 ft
- Dunkerton960 ft
- Hudson920 ft
- Cedar Falls920 ft
- Raymond910 ft
- Janesville partly900 ft
- Waterloo880 ft
- Gilbertville860 ft
- Elk Run Heights850 ft
- Evansdale840 ft
- Washburn830 ft
- La Porte City820 ft
How we measure
- Average: every USGS 3DEP bare-earth cell of land inside the Census county boundary (TIGER/Line, Jan 1 2026), weighted equally, on a 1 arc-second (≈100 ft, 30 m) grid. Land means the boundary minus Census area water.
- Highest and lowest: the highest land cell. Lowest: the lowest land cell; coastal ground within 3 ft (1 m) of named tidal water counts as sea level.
- 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, 780 ft at 42.3462° N, 92.2882° W, is in such a hollow or patch and is not counted.
- Nearby Places: neighboring counties and rankings use each one's average elevation, on its own grid, the same figure its page shows. Peaks and hills: the highest summits inside the county with at least 980 ft (300 m) of prominence, then the highest federal (GNIS) summits inside it 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).
- Towns: each town's typical elevation (population-weighted median of its own 2020 blocks at 1 arc-second); a town is listed when any of its 2020 residents live in the county.
- 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 (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 (TIGER boundaries and water, 2020 blocks, 2024 population estimates, county adjacency); NOAA NGS survey heights; BTS time zones. All public domain.