Area Elevation app icon

Area Elevation — USGS Terrain at a Glance

A portable terrain viewer for iPhone and iPad.

Drop in on any spot in the United States and instantly see the shape of the land — contour lines, shaded relief, and slope steepness — drawn over a satellite or standard map, with the minimum and maximum elevation for an area you choose. Elevation comes straight from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), the U.S. government's high-resolution national dataset.

Download Area Elevation on the App Store iPhone · iPad
Features

See the lay of the land, anywhere in the U.S.

Authoritative USGS terrain, three ways to pick a location, and a clear read on elevation for the exact area you care about.

  1. Pick a location three ways:
    • Tap “Locate me” to center on your current position
    • Type exact latitude/longitude coordinates
    • Search by U.S. address with auto-complete
  2. See the terrain as layered overlays:
    • Contours — elevation lines at 2 ft, 5 ft, or 10 ft intervals, with optional on-map elevation labels
    • Hillshade — shaded relief that makes ridges, valleys, and slopes pop
    • Slope — color-coded steepness to spot flat ground and steep grades at a glance
  3. Layer terrain over Satellite, Hybrid, or Standard base maps.
  4. Measure an area of interest:
    • Set an adjustable circle from a 50 ft to a 2,000 ft radius
    • Read the minimum and maximum elevation inside the circle, in feet
    • Map pins mark exactly where the high and low points occur
  5. Authoritative data — every reading comes from the U.S. Geological Survey 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), a public-domain national elevation dataset.
  6. Works offline for areas you've already viewed — terrain you've loaded stays cached on the device.
  7. Live loading feedback — a progress ring animates around the area while terrain loads, and slow or offline requests resolve quickly with a clear message instead of a frozen screen.
  8. Clear, responsive layout that adapts smoothly between portrait and landscape.
  9. One-tap cache clearing when you want to free up space (current cache size is shown in the footer).
  10. Private by design — no account, no sign-up, no ads, no tracking. Your location is used only to center the map; nothing about you is collected.

Coverage is the United States and its territories (USGS 3DEP). Elevation data: USGS National Map 3DEP (public domain). Base map, address search, and place lookup: Apple Maps.