Durham, NC Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
590 ft 180 m500 ft 150 m450 ft 135 m360 ft 110 m270 ft 80 m220 ft 70 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.
- City area
- Fades everything outside the official city limits (US Census).
Elevation Data
Durham sits at about 350 ft (105 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
350 ft 105 m
most residents: 290–410 ft
Lowest
220 ft 70 m
on the southwest side
Highest
590 ft 180 m
on the northwest side
Average
350 ft 105 m
all land inside city limits
Durham spans about 370 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 | 350 ft105 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the northwest side | 590 ft180 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the southwest side | 220 ft70 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Durham | 400 ft120 m |
| Airport (RDU) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 2.0 mi southeast of the city limits | 435 ft133 m |
| Average of all land | 350 ft105 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
16 mi south to north through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Durham, Wake and Orange counties, North Carolina, United States
- Population
- 301,870 2024 est.
- Land area
- 120.3 sq mi + 0.8 sq mi water
- Density
- 2,510 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 35.9940° N, 78.8986° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Piedmont
- Drains to
- Cape Fear River → Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- Raleigh-Durham International (RDU) 435 ft
- ZIP codes 10
- 27517 27560 27701 27703 27704 27705 27707 27708 27712 27713
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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
- Hillsborough640 ft
- Carrboro460 ft
- Governors Club400 ft
- Chapel Hill400 ft
- Durham350 ft
- Butner350 ft
- Gorman350 ft
- Morrisville340 ft
- Creedmoor340 ft
- Governors Village280 ft
- Carolina Meadows280 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in North Carolina378th highest of 782
- Towns in Durham County2nd highest of 3
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Edwards Mountain660 ft
- Couch Mountain, Orange County640 ft
- Nunn Mountain620 ft
- Piney Mountain, Orange County510 ft
- High Hill, Orange County470 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, 220 ft at 35.8699° N, 78.8990° 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.