Nags Head, NC Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
70 ft 21 m52 ft 16 m43 ft 13 m26 ft 8 m9 ft 3 m0 ft 0 m
Contours every 200 ft, bold every 1,000 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.
- Town area
- Fades everything outside the official town limits (US Census).
Elevation Data
Nags Head sits at about 15 ft (4 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
15 ft 4 m
most residents: 6–37 ft
Lowest
0 ft 0 m
at sea level on the Atlantic Ocean
Highest
70 ft 21 m
on the northwest side
Average
10 ft 3 m
all land inside town limits
Nags Head spans about 70 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.
1% of Nags Head's land lies below the average daily high tide (MHHW, NOAA), and 18% lies less than 3 ft above it. Check flood zones on FEMA's map
| Figure | Elevation |
|---|---|
| Typical Where people live: half of residents higher, half lower | 15 ft4 m |
| Highest point Inside town limits, on the northwest side | 70 ft21 m |
| Lowest point Where the land meets the Atlantic Ocean | 0 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Nags Head | 6 ft2 m |
| Airport (MQI) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 3.9 mi southwest of the town limits | 13 ft4 m |
| Average of all land | 10 ft3 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
0.8 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- Town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States
- Population
- 3,106 2024 est.
- Land area
- 6.6 sq mi + 0.1 sq mi water
- Density
- 469 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 35.9574° N, 75.6241° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Coastal Plain
- Drains to
- Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- Dare County Regional (MQI) 13 ft
- ZIP codes 1
- 27959
⤓ Download this map
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
- Nags Head15 ft
- Southern Shores11 ft
- Grandy10 ft
- Kitty Hawk9 ft
- Duck9 ft
- Kill Devil Hills9 ft
- Waves4 ft
- Manteo4 ft
- Rodanthe4 ft
- Wanchese2 ft
- Manns Harbor2 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in North Carolina709th highest of 782
- Towns in Dare Countyhighest of 15
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Kill Devil Hills88 ft
- Engagement Hill56 ft
- West Hill50 ft
- Seven Sisters36 ft
- Lagerhead Hills4 ft
How we measure
- Typical elevation: the population-weighted median: every 2020 Census block inside the town 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 town 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, −2 ft at 35.8993° N, 75.6226° W, is in such a hollow or patch and is not counted; this coastal land's lowest point is sea level on the coast.
- 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 tidal surfaces (MHHW). All public domain.