Johnston County, NC Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
370 ft 115 m290 ft 90 m260 ft 80 m180 ft 55 m110 ft 30 m68 ft 21 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
Johnston County averages about 190 ft (60 m) above sea level across all its land. Its ground runs from 68 ft on the southeast side to 370 ft on the northwest side.
Average elevation
190 ft 60 m
all land inside the county
Highest
370 ft 115 m
on the northwest side
Lowest
68 ft 21 m
on the southeast side
Johnston County spans about 302 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 | 190 ft60 m |
| Highest point Inside the county, on the northwest side | 370 ft115 m |
| Lowest point Inside the county, on the southeast side | 68 ft21 m |
Elevation profile, south to north
31 mi south to north through Clayton.
Topographic Map
- Location
- County in North Carolina, United States
- Population
- 249,794 2024 est.
- Land area
- 792.0 sq mi + 3.6 sq mi water
- Density
- 315 per sq mi
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Coastal Plain
- Drains to
- Atlantic Ocean
⤓ Download this map
WebP, 1200 × 900. Free to use: credit “ElevationOf.com” with a link to this page.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS
Nearby Places
Neighboring counties sharing a border, by average
- Wake County330 ft
- Harnett County250 ft
- Johnston County190 ft
- Nash County190 ft
- Sampson County130 ft
- Wilson County130 ft
- Wayne County120 ft
Rankings by average elevation
- Counties in North Carolina63rd highest of 100
- Counties in the United States2,786th highest of 3,151
All 11 towns in Johnston County by typical elevation
- Clayton290 ft
- Archer Lodge280 ft
- Benson240 ft
- Wilson's Mills230 ft
- Four Oaks200 ft
- Kenly190 ft
- Micro190 ft
- Selma170 ft
- Pine Level160 ft
- Princeton150 ft
- Smithfield140 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, −180 ft at 35.4749° N, 78.1404° 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.