Buffalo, IA Elevation & Topographic Map

Elevation

800 ft 245 m740 ft 225 m710 ft 215 m650 ft 195 m580 ft 180 m550 ft 170 m

Contours every 100 ft, bold every 500 ft

USGS 3DEP · U.S. Census Bureau

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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

Buffalo sits at about 590 ft (180 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.

Typical elevation

590 ft 180 m

most residents: 560–670 ft

Lowest

550 ft 170 m

on the west side

Highest

800 ft 245 m

on the northeast side

Average

630 ft 190 m

all land inside city limits

Buffalo spans about 250 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	590 ft180 m
Highest point Inside city limits, on the northeast side	800 ft245 m
Lowest point Inside city limits, on the west side	550 ft170 m
Town center USGS map point for Buffalo	560 ft170 m
Airport (MLI) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 8.4 mi east of the city limits	590 ft180 m
Average of all land	630 ft190 m

Elevation profile, south to north

0.7 mi south to north through the town center.

Topographic Map

Location: City in Scott County, Iowa, United States
Population: 1,163 2024 est.
Land area: 6.8 sq mi
Density: 172 per sq mi
Coordinates: 41.4564° N, 90.7235° W
Time zone: Central UTC−6 / −5
Landform region: Central Lowland
Drains to: Mississippi River → Gulf of America
Airport: Quad Cities International (MLI) 590 ft
ZIP codes 3: 52726 52728 52804

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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

Rankings by typical elevation

Towns in Iowa1,015th highest of 1,026
Towns in Scott Countylowest of 20

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, 430 ft at 41.4643° N, 90.7074° 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.