Elevation Lookup API
Height above mean sea level in metres for any point on land, from a global 15 arc-second grid (about 460 m) that covers land and the sea floor. Send one point, or up to 100 in a single call for profiles and routes.
Example
$ curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" "https://api.mygeocode.com/v1/elevation?lat=27.9881&lon=86.9250"
# Several points, separated by |
$ curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" "https://api.mygeocode.com/v1/elevation?locations=46.5763,7.6613|46.5484,7.9819|46.5588,8.0056"Values come from the nearest cell of a global 15 arc-second grid, so you get the height of the surrounding terrain rather than a spot height: right for route profiles, catchment work, radio paths and sanity checks, too coarse for a single building or a narrow ridge. Expect a few metres of error on gentle ground and more in steep mountains. Over the ocean the value is the depth of the sea floor as a negative number.
{
"status": "ok",
"results": [
{
"lat": 27.9881,
"lon": 86.925,
"elevation_m": 8627.0,
"resolution_m": 463.8
}
]
}What you get back
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
results | One entry per point, in the order you sent them. |
elevation_m | Metres above mean sea level, one decimal. Negative below sea level (Death Valley, the Dead Sea shore). Over the sea, the depth of the sea floor as a negative number. |
resolution_m | The grid spacing of the dataset in metres: 463.8 (15 arc-seconds). |
Where it is used
Route profiles
Send the points of a hiking or cycling route in batches of 100 and draw the elevation profile, total ascent and steepest gradient.
Site assessment
Flood risk screening, solar panel planning, radio line of sight. Combine with forward geocoding to go from an address to a height in two calls.
Correcting GPS altitude
Consumer GPS altitude is often off by tens of metres. Replace it with a terrain lookup for anything that is on the ground.
Price and limits
Each point counts as one request, so a call with 100 points counts as 100. Every account has 2,500 free requests a day, shared by all of its keys; past that, €0.0001 each from prepaid credit, or nothing on an Unlimited key (€50 a month). Pricing. The Google Elevation API, Bing Elevations and Open-Elevation formats are available as drop-in hosts.