Somerville, MA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
140 ft 40 m100 ft 30 m86 ft 26 m52 ft 16 m18 ft 5 m1 ft 0 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
Somerville sits at about 38 ft (12 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
38 ft 12 m
most residents: 13–80 ft
Lowest
1 ft 0 m
on the northwest side
Highest
140 ft 40 m
on Winter Hill
Average
37 ft 11 m
all land inside city limits
Somerville spans about 139 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 | 38 ft12 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on Winter Hill | 140 ft40 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the northwest side | 1 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Somerville | 100 ft30 m |
| Airport (BOS) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 3.5 mi east of the city limits | 19 ft6 m |
| Average of all land | 37 ft11 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
1.6 mi south to north through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States
- Population
- 82,149 2024 est.
- Land area
- 4.1 sq mi + 0.1 sq mi water
- Density
- 19,939 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 42.3876° N, 71.0995° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- New England
- Drains to
- Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- General Edward Lawrence Logan International (BOS) 19 ft
- ZIP codes 3
- 02143 02144 02145
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS, FAA
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Massachusetts380th highest of 435
- Towns in Middlesex County58th highest of 60
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Monadnock Mountain3,170 ft
- North Pack Monadnock Mountain2,260 ft
- Crotched Mountain2,063 ft
- Clarendon Hill150 ft
- Mount Benedict65 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).
- 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, −1 ft at 42.3963° N, 71.0785° 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; NOAA NGS survey heights. All public domain.