Buchanan County, MO Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
1,190 ft 365 m1,090 ft 330 m1,030 ft 315 m930 ft 285 m820 ft 250 m770 ft 235 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 930 ft (285 m) above sea level across all its land. Its ground runs from 770 ft on the southwest side to 1,190 ft on the south side.
Average elevation
930 ft 285 m
all land inside the county
Highest
1,190 ft 365 m
on the south side
Lowest
770 ft 235 m
on the southwest side
Buchanan County spans about 420 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 | 930 ft285 m |
| Highest point Inside the county, on the south side | 1,190 ft365 m |
| Lowest point Inside the county, on the southwest side | 770 ft235 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
20 mi south to north through St. Joseph.
Topographic Map
- Location
- County in Missouri, United States
- Population
- 83,574 2024 est.
- Land area
- 408.3 sq mi + 6.9 sq mi water
- Density
- 205 per sq mi
- Time zone
- Central UTC−6 / −5
- Landform region
- Central Lowland
- Drains to
- Gulf of America 96%
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS
Nearby Places
Neighboring counties sharing a border, by average
- Atchison County, KS1,030 ft
- Clinton County990 ft
- Doniphan County, KS990 ft
- Andrew County980 ft
- DeKalb County960 ft
- Buchanan County930 ft
- Platte County900 ft
Rankings by average elevation
- Counties in Missouri39th highest of 114
- Counties in the United States1,528th highest of 3,151
Peaks and hills highest inside
- King Hill, Buchanan County1,069 ft
All 8 towns in Buchanan County by typical elevation
- De Kalb1,130 ft
- Faucett970 ft
- Gower partly960 ft
- St. Joseph960 ft
- Easton930 ft
- Agency910 ft
- Rushville850 ft
- Lewis and Clark Village790 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.
- 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.