Madison County, IA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
1,270 ft 390 m1,160 ft 355 m1,110 ft 335 m1,000 ft 305 m880 ft 270 m830 ft 255 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
Madison County averages about 1,070 ft (325 m) above sea level across all its land. Its ground runs from 830 ft on the northeast side to 1,270 ft on the southwest side.
Average elevation
1,070 ft 325 m
all land inside the county
Highest
1,270 ft 390 m
on the southwest side
Lowest
830 ft 255 m
on the northeast side
Madison County spans about 440 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 | 1,070 ft325 m |
| Highest point Inside the county, on the southwest side | 1,270 ft390 m |
| Lowest point Inside the county, on the northeast side | 830 ft255 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
23 mi west to east through Winterset.
Topographic Map
- Location
- County in Iowa, United States
- Population
- 17,161 2024 est.
- Land area
- 561.0 sq mi + 1.2 sq mi water
- Density
- 31 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
- Adair County1,270 ft
- Union County1,210 ft
- Clarke County1,090 ft
- Madison County1,070 ft
- Dallas County990 ft
- Warren County910 ft
Rankings by average elevation
- Counties in Iowa53rd highest of 99
- Counties in the United States1,292nd highest of 3,151
All 9 towns in Madison County by typical elevation
- Macksburg1,250 ft
- Winterset1,120 ft
- Earlham1,100 ft
- Truro1,090 ft
- St. Charles1,060 ft
- East Peru970 ft
- West Des Moines partly940 ft
- Patterson890 ft
- Bevington850 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, 830 ft at 41.4157° N, 93.8015° 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.