Orange County, NC Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
860 ft 260 m700 ft 215 m620 ft 190 m470 ft 140 m310 ft 95 m230 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.
- County area
- Fades everything outside the official county boundary (US Census).
Elevation Data
Orange County averages about 580 ft (180 m) above sea level across all its land. Its ground runs from 230 ft on the southeast side to 860 ft on Occoneechee Mountain.
Average elevation
580 ft 180 m
all land inside the county
Highest
860 ft 260 m
on Occoneechee Mountain
Lowest
230 ft 70 m
on the southeast side
Orange County spans about 630 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 | 580 ft180 m |
| Highest point Inside the county, on Occoneechee Mountain (3DEP terrain model; no NGS survey height) | 860 ft260 m |
| Lowest point Inside the county, on the southeast side | 230 ft70 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
15 mi west to east through Chapel Hill.
Topographic Map
- Location
- County in North Carolina, United States
- Population
- 152,877 2024 est.
- Land area
- 397.6 sq mi + 3.4 sq mi water
- Density
- 385 per sq mi
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Piedmont
- 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
- Alamance County610 ft
- Orange County580 ft
- Caswell County580 ft
- Person County560 ft
- Chatham County440 ft
- Durham County380 ft
Rankings by average elevation
- Counties in North Carolina43rd highest of 100
- Counties in the United States2,231st highest of 3,151
Peaks and hills highest inside
- Occoneechee Mountain860 ft
- Pickards Mountain780 ft
- Bald Mountain, Orange County760 ft
- Scarlett Hill760 ft
- Blackwood Mountain740 ft
All 6 towns in Orange County by typical elevation
- Mebane partly650 ft
- Hillsborough640 ft
- Efland630 ft
- Carrboro460 ft
- Chapel Hill400 ft
- Durham partly350 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; it is a named summit, so its height is the peak method: the 3DEP top on a ~7 ft (2 m) window, or the NGS published height when a survey mark sits within 160 ft (50 m) of it. 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.