Virginia Beach, VA Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
180 ft 55 m130 ft 40 m110 ft 35 m67 ft 21 m22 ft 7 m0 ft 0 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.
- City area
- Fades everything outside the official city limits (US Census).
Elevation Data
Virginia Beach sits at about 12 ft (4 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
12 ft 4 m
most residents: 7–20 ft
Lowest
0 ft 0 m
at sea level on Back Bay
Highest
180 ft 55 m
on the west side
Average
9 ft 3 m
all land inside city limits
Virginia Beach spans about 180 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 | 12 ft4 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the west side | 180 ft55 m |
| Lowest point Where the land meets Back Bay | 0 ft0 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Virginia Beach | 9 ft3 m |
| Airport (ORF) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways, 0.3 mi west of the city limits | 26 ft8 m |
| Average of all land | 9 ft3 m |
Topographic Map
- Location
- Independent city in Virginia, United States
- Population
- 454,808 2024 est.
- Land area
- 244.7 sq mi + 252.8 sq mi water
- Density
- 1,858 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 36.8529° N, 75.9780° W
- Time zone
- Eastern UTC−5 / −4
- Landform region
- Coastal Plain
- Drains to
- Atlantic Ocean
- Airport
- Norfolk International (ORF) 26 ft
- ZIP codes 12
- 23451 23452 23453 23454 23455 23456 23457 23459 23460 23461 23462 23464
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Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, USGS, FAA
Nearby Places
Nearby towns by typical elevation
- Newport News30 ft
- Cheriton20 ft
- Bethel Manor19 ft
- Chesapeake15 ft
- Virginia Beach12 ft
- Portsmouth11 ft
- Norfolk11 ft
- Hampton10 ft
- Cape Charles8 ft
- Moyock, NC8 ft
- Poquoson5 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Virginia675th highest of 700
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Mount Trashmore59 ft
- White Hill, Virginia Beach city44 ft
- The Isaacs7 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, −39 ft at 36.7876° N, 76.1985° 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. All public domain.