What Is My Elevation
Find out how high you are above sea level. The tool reads your position, looks up the ground elevation from a global terrain model and shows the altitude your phone's GPS reports, in feet or meters, with what that height means for air pressure, oxygen and boiling water.
Last updated:
Press Find my elevation and allow location access. Your coordinates are used to look up the ground elevation.
At sea level
Look up elevation for other coordinates
Example: Denver, Colorado. You can paste coordinates copied from Google Maps.
How to use the What Is My Elevation
- Press Find my elevation and allow location access when the browser asks.
- Read your ground elevation in the green card; switch between feet and meters at the top.
- Compare the GPS altitude your phone reports and check its accuracy.
- See what the height means: air pressure, oxygen and the boiling point of water.
- Check another place by pasting its latitude and longitude into the box below.
Ground elevation vs. GPS altitude
This page shows two different heights. Ground elevation is the height of the terrain at your coordinates above mean sea level, taken from the Copernicus GLO-90 digital elevation model (a satellite radar survey of the whole planet at about 90 m resolution), provided by the free Open-Meteo API. GPS altitude is what your phone's receiver measured for the device itself, so it includes the floor you are standing on and has a larger error than the horizontal position.
When both are available and you are outdoors at ground level, they usually agree within 10–30 m. A bigger gap usually means a weak GPS fix, that you are high in a building, or that your device reports height above the WGS84 ellipsoid rather than above sea level.
What changes with elevation
The values below use the International Standard Atmosphere. Air pressure: p = 1013.25 × (1 − 2.25577 × 10⁻⁵ × h)5.25588 hPa, with h in meters. The boiling point of water follows from the Clausius–Clapeyron equation, and temperature falls by about 6.5 °C per 1,000 m (3.6 °F per 1,000 ft). Real weather moves pressure by a few percent from day to day.
| Elevation | Example | Air pressure | Oxygen vs. sea level | Water boils at |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 m / 0 ft | Coastline | 1013 hPa | 100% | 100.0 °C / 212.0 °F |
| 500 m / 1,640 ft | Many inland towns | 955 hPa | 94% | 98.3 °C / 209.0 °F |
| 1,609 m / 5,280 ft | Denver, Colorado | 834 hPa | 82% | 94.5 °C / 202.2 °F |
| 2,240 m / 7,350 ft | Mexico City | 772 hPa | 76% | 92.4 °C / 198.3 °F |
| 3,000 m / 9,840 ft | High ski resorts | 701 hPa | 69% | 89.8 °C / 193.6 °F |
| 3,640 m / 11,940 ft | La Paz, Bolivia | 646 hPa | 64% | 87.6 °C / 189.7 °F |
| 8,849 m / 29,032 ft | Summit of Mount Everest | 314 hPa | 31% | about 69 °C / 157 °F |
"Oxygen vs. sea level" is the share of oxygen molecules in each breath compared with sea level. The air is still 20.95% oxygen at every height; there is simply less air.
Practical uses
- Cooking and baking: above about 900 m (3,000 ft) recipes often need adjusting; the high altitude baking calculator does the math.
- Hiking and travel: compare your sleeping elevation from night to night; above 3,000 m the usual advice is to raise it by no more than 300–500 m per day.
- Weather stations and barometers: enter your station elevation so the sea-level pressure is corrected properly.
- Flood risk and drainage: elevation relative to nearby rivers or the coast is a first rough check, though detailed flood maps use finer surveys.
Frequently asked questions
How accurate is the elevation shown?
The ground elevation comes from the Copernicus 90 m digital elevation model via Open-Meteo, which is typically accurate to within a few meters on open ground but averages each roughly 90 m grid cell, so steep cliffs, deep valleys and tall buildings can be off by more. How exact the position is matters too: a Wi-Fi based position that is a few hundred meters off can give a noticeably different elevation in hilly areas.
Why is my GPS altitude different from the ground elevation?
GPS altitude includes your height above the ground (for example on an upper floor), its vertical error is usually 2 to 3 times larger than the horizontal error, and some devices report height above the WGS84 ellipsoid instead of above mean sea level. The ellipsoid and sea level differ by up to about 100 m depending on where you are on Earth.
Why does it say altitude is not reported?
Most laptops and many phones indoors do not provide an altitude to web pages. The ground elevation lookup still works from your coordinates, so you get an elevation either way.
What elevation counts as high altitude?
Doctors usually call 1,500 to 3,500 m (about 4,900 to 11,500 ft) high altitude, 3,500 to 5,500 m very high and above 5,500 m extreme. Altitude sickness becomes common above about 2,500 m (8,200 ft), especially if you go up quickly.
Why does water boil at a lower temperature at high elevation?
Water boils when its vapor pressure equals the surrounding air pressure. Air pressure falls with height, so at 1,600 m (Denver) water boils at roughly 94.5 °C (202 °F) instead of 100 °C (212 °F). Foods cooked in water take longer, which is why recipes have high-altitude adjustments.
Is my location shared?
Your position is only used in your browser and, to look up the ground elevation, the coordinates are sent to the Open-Meteo elevation service. Nothing is stored and no account is needed.
Are all the tools on FreeToolCabin tested for quality and accuracy?
Yes! Every tool on our site undergoes automated Q/A testing in real browser environments to ensure high precision, correct output, and zero errors. If you happen to spot a bug or have a suggestion, please contact us at [email protected] and our team will review it right away.