Madison, WI Elevation & Topographic Map
Elevation
1,190 ft 360 m1,100 ft 335 m1,060 ft 325 m970 ft 295 m890 ft 270 m840 ft 255 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
Madison sits at about 910 ft (280 m) above sea level, worked out from 2020 Census block heights on USGS 3DEP, weighted by residents.
Typical elevation
910 ft 280 m
most residents: 860–1,060 ft
Lowest
840 ft 255 m
on the southeast side
Highest
1,190 ft 360 m
on the west side
Average
940 ft 285 m
all land inside city limits
Madison 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 | 910 ft280 m |
| Highest point Inside city limits, on the west side | 1,190 ft360 m |
| Lowest point Inside city limits, on the southeast side | 840 ft255 m |
| Town center USGS map point for Madison | 870 ft265 m |
| Airport (MSN) FAA airport elevation, the highest point of its runways | 887 ft270 m |
| Average of all land | 940 ft285 m |
Elevation profile, west to east
16 mi west to east through the town center.
Topographic Map
- Location
- City in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States
- Population
- 285,300 2024 est.
- Land area
- 84.3 sq mi + 21.4 sq mi water
- Density
- 3,386 per sq mi
- Coordinates
- 43.0731° N, 89.4012° W
- Time zone
- Central UTC−6 / −5
- Landform region
- Central Lowland
- Drains to
- Yahara River → Rock River → Mississippi River → Gulf of America
- Airport
- Dane County Regional/Truax Field (MSN) 887 ft
- ZIP codes 18
- 53558 53562 53593 53597 53703 53704 53705 53706 53711 53713 53714 53715 53716 53717 53718 53719 53726 53792
⤓ 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
- Fitchburg980 ft
- Burke960 ft
- Middleton930 ft
- Madison910 ft
- Shorewood Hills900 ft
- McFarland890 ft
- Maple Bluff890 ft
- Dunn880 ft
- Blooming Grove880 ft
- Westport880 ft
- Monona870 ft
Rankings by typical elevation
- Towns in Wisconsin1,200th highest of 2,049
- Towns in Dane County32nd highest of 59
Peaks and hills nearest, by height
- Liberty Mound1,075 ft
- Eagle Heights1,020 ft
- Bascom Hill960 ft
- Observatory Hill, Dane County960 ft
- Mansion Hill930 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, 840 ft at 43.0793° N, 89.3710° 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; NOAA NGS survey heights. All public domain.