Gaithersburg, MD Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
550 ft 170 m490 ft 150 m460 ft 140 m400 ft 120 m340 ft 105 m310 ft 95 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
Gaithersburg sits at about 430 ft (130 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
430 ft 130 m
most residents: 390–500 ft
Lowest
310 ft 95 m
on the northwest side
Highest
550 ft 170 m
on the southeast side
Average
430 ft 130 m
all land inside city limits
Gaithersburg spans about 240 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 | 430 ft130 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the southeast side | 550 ft170 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the northwest side | 310 ft95 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Gaithersburg | 500 ft155 m |
| Airport (GAI) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 1.1 mi northeast of the city limits | 539 ft164 m |
| Average of all land | 430 ft130 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
3.3 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States
- Population
- 70,686 2024 est.
- Land area
- 10.3 sq mi + 0.1 sq mi water
- Density
- 6,830 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 39.1434° N, 77.2014° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Piedmont
- Drains to
- Potomac River → Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- Montgomery County Airpark (GAI) 539 ft
- ZIP codes 4
- 20877 20878 20879 20899
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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
- Laytonsville590 ft
- Washington Grove520 ft
- Redland480 ft
- Flower Hill470 ft
- Derwood450 ft
- Germantown440 ft
- Gaithersburg430 ft
- Montgomery Village430 ft
- Rockville420 ft
- North Potomac390 ft
- Darnestown360 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Maryland166th highest of 536
- Towns in Montgomery County17th highest of 59
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Sugarloaf3,450 ft
- Third Hill Mountain2,170 ft
- Quirauk Mountain2,140 ft
- Black Hill, Montgomery County520 ft
- Hunting Hill515 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.