Portsmouth, VA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
57 ft 17 m43 ft 13 m35 ft 11 m21 ft 6 m7 ft 2 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.
- City area
- Fades everything outside the official city limits (US Census).
Elevation Data
Portsmouth sits at about 11 ft (3 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
11 ft 3 m
most residents: 8–16 ft
Lowest
0 ft 0 m
near the middle
Highest
57 ft 17 m
on the northwest side
Average
14 ft 4 m
all land inside city limits
Portsmouth spans about 57 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 | 11 ft3 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the northwest side | 57 ft17 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, near the middle | 0 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Portsmouth | 9 ft3 m |
| Airport (ORF) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 6.4 mi northeast of the city limits | 26 ft8 m |
| Average of all land | 14 ft4 m |
Topographic Map
- Location
- Independent city in Virginia, United States
- Population
- 96,482 2024 est.
- Land area
- 33.3 sq mi + 13.4 sq mi water
- Density
- 2,897 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 36.8354° N, 76.2983° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Coastal Plain
- Drains to
- Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- Norfolk International (ORF) 26 ft
- ZIP codes 7
- 23701 23702 23703 23704 23707 23708 23709
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS, FAA
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
- Benns Church44 ft
- Newport News30 ft
- Suffolk22 ft
- Carrollton19 ft
- Bethel Manor19 ft
- Chesapeake15 ft
- Virginia Beach12 ft
- Portsmouth11 ft
- Norfolk11 ft
- Hampton10 ft
- Poquoson5 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Virginia678th highest of 700
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Mount Trashmore59 ft
- White Hill, Virginia Beach city44 ft
- Knob Hill31 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, −40 ft at 36.8190° N, 76.2963° 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.