Buchanan County, IA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
1,160 ft 355 m1,070 ft 325 m1,020 ft 310 m930 ft 285 m830 ft 255 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
Buchanan County averages about 990 ft (300 m) above sea level across all its land. Its ground runs from 790 ft on the southwest side to 1,160 ft on the north side.
Average elevation
990 ft 300 m
all land inside the county
Highest
1,160 ft 355 m
on the north side
Lowest
790 ft 240 m
on the southwest side
Buchanan County spans about 370 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 | 990 ft300 m |
| Highest point Inside the county, on the north side | 1,160 ft355 m |
| Lowest point Inside the county, on the southwest side | 790 ft240 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
24 mi south to north through Independence.
Topographic Map
- Location
- County in Iowa, United States
- Population
- 20,733 2024 est.
- Land area
- 571.1 sq mi + 2.0 sq mi water
- Density
- 36 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
- Fayette County1,100 ft
- Delaware County1,010 ft
- Buchanan County990 ft
- Black Hawk County920 ft
- Benton County880 ft
- Linn County850 ft
Rankings by average elevation
- Counties in Iowa65th highest of 99
- Counties in the United States1,423rd highest of 3,151
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.
- 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.