Charlottesville, VA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
650 ft 200 m560 ft 170 m520 ft 160 m430 ft 130 m340 ft 105 m300 ft 90 m
Contours every 100 ft, bold every 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
Charlottesville sits at about 460 ft (140 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
460 ft 140 m
most residents: 390–530 ft
Lowest
300 ft 90 m
on the east side
Highest
650 ft 200 m
on the west side
Average
450 ft 135 m
all land inside city limits
Charlottesville spans about 350 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 | 460 ft140 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the west side | 650 ft200 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the east side | 300 ft90 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Charlottesville | 460 ft140 m |
| Airport (CHO) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 4.9 mi north of the city limits | 640 ft195 m |
| Average of all land | 450 ft135 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
3.6 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- Independent city in Virginia, United States
- Population
- 44,767 2024 est.
- Land area
- 10.2 sq mi
- Density
- 4,370 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 38.0293° N, 78.4767° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Piedmont
- Drains to
- Rivanna River → James River → Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- Charlottesville-Albemarle (CHO) 640 ft
- ZIP codes 4
- 22901 22902 22903 22908
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS, FAA
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
- University of Virginia640 ft
- Ivy600 ft
- Earlysville560 ft
- Free Union530 ft
- Rio510 ft
- Piney Mountain490 ft
- Pantops490 ft
- Hollymead470 ft
- Charlottesville460 ft
- Keswick420 ft
- Rivanna370 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Virginia343rd highest of 700
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Devils Knob3,850 ft
- Hightop3,593 ft
- Big Flat Mountain3,390 ft
- Heard Mountain2,399 ft
- Peters Mountain1,800 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).
- 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 NGS survey heights. All public domain.