About US

What we do

We make free, easy-to-read tools that answer a simple question: how high is this spot, and what does that mean for me? You can check the height of the ground under your feet, look up any place in the United States, see it on a map, and understand what the number means for cooking, hiking, travel and everyday life. Our ZIP code finder also tells you which ZIP or postal code a place belongs to and shows facts about the area around it.

Why this exists

Open two apps at the same spot and they often show two different heights. One may come from your phone’s sensors, another from a map. That is confusing, and most pages never explain why. We built these tools to show the numbers side by side, say where each one comes from, and explain the difference in plain words. The same confusion happens with ZIP codes, because the code for where you are standing can differ from the one on your mailing address, so the ZIP code finder shows the result on a map and explains where it comes from.

What you can do here

  • Check your elevation. See ground height above sea level in feet or meters, next to your phone’s own altitude reading when it provides one, with a clear note on how reliable your position fix is.
  • Look up any place. Search an address, a town or a pair of coordinates (decimal or degrees, minutes and seconds) and get its height. Copy the result or a shareable link.
  • See it on a map. Switch between topographic, street, aerial and USGS Topo maps, drag a pin to test any point, and add shaded terrain relief to make ridges and valleys stand out.
  • Know where you are. View coordinates, place name, time zone, speed, direction, a compass, distance travelled, and whether you are going up or down.
  • Understand the number. See how your height changes the boiling point of water, air pressure, the oxygen in each breath, temperature, how far you can see, and the risk of altitude sickness.
  • Check conditions. See local temperature, wind, sunrise and sunset.
  • Explore nearby peaks. List named mountains around you by distance or height.
  • Find official USGS maps. See the current and historical topographic maps that cover a spot in the U.S., with previews and downloads.
  • Compare places. Put your height next to famous mountains, high-altitude cities, the lowest places on Earth and the high and low point of each continent.
  • Find your ZIP code. Use your location, click the map, or search an address, a city or a landmark, and get the ZIP or postal code together with the street, city, state or region and country.
  • See every code in a city, or every place in a code. List the ZIP codes of a city and see them on the map, or enter a code to see the towns and neighborhoods that use it.
  • Use postal codes worldwide. The finder recognizes the postal code formats of more than 60 countries and tells you clearly when a country does not use postal codes.
  • See facts about the area. For U.S. ZIP codes, see population, income, housing, education and other Census Bureau figures ranked against other ZIP codes. For other countries, see local time, time zone and national figures for the country.

How it works

  1. Your browser shares your position, or you choose a spot by search or by tapping the map.
  2. We look up that spot in a terrain model, which is a grid of ground heights built from satellite and survey data.
  3. The page shows the height and explains what it means.

The ZIP code finder follows the same idea. It matches the address or position you give to a point on the map, reads the postal code that belongs to that point, and adds local time and area figures.

How accurate is it?

Honest answer: good for everyday use, not for professional decisions. The ground heights come from a terrain model with a grid of roughly 90 meters. On flat land the result is usually within a few meters. In steep terrain, deep valleys, dense cities and polar regions, the difference can be larger. Your phone’s position and altitude readings add their own error, and phone altitude in particular can be off by tens of meters.

ZIP codes follow mail delivery routes rather than exact map boundaries, so the code for your physical position can differ from the code on your mailing address, especially near the edge of an area. If an exact house number is missing from the map data, the finder shows the street or the wider area and says so. Neighborhood figures for U.S. ZIP codes are survey estimates with a margin of error, so use them to compare areas rather than to count people, and for other countries the figures describe the whole country, not a postal area.

Do not use these tools for land surveying, construction, flood determination, aviation or navigation in an emergency. Do not use the ZIP code finder to verify an address for mail, shipping or legal forms, and use the code printed on your official mail instead. For all of these, use official surveys, certified sources and the proper authorities. The altitude sickness note is general information and not medical advice.

Where our data comes from

We rely on open data and public services, and we are grateful to the people who maintain them:

  • Open-Meteo for ground elevation, weather and time zones (open-meteo.com)
  • OpenTopoData and the SRTM terrain data as a backup elevation source
  • OpenStreetMap contributors for street maps, address search, peak names and place data for the ZIP code finder
  • OpenTopoMap for topographic map tiles
  • U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for the USGS Topo map and the list of topographic map scans
  • Esri for aerial imagery and the light map style
  • Mapterhorn for the terrain relief layer
  • BigDataCloud for place names
  • U.S. Census Bureau for U.S. address matching and the American Community Survey figures
  • World Bank for country figures such as population, GDP per person and unemployment
  • Wikidata for city population when OpenStreetMap does not list it
  • Zippopotam.us for postal code lists
  • timeapi.io as a backup time zone source
  • Leaflet for the map software

Each provider’s own terms apply to its data.

Our approach to privacy

We keep things simple: no accounts and no stored locations. Our elevation tools round coordinates whenever your position is sent to an outside service. The ZIP code finder has to send the address or position you enter to the services listed above so that it can find the right code, but it does not store it. You can use most tools without sharing your location at all, and in the ZIP code finder you can type an address instead. The full details are in our Privacy Policy.

Who these tools are for

Hikers and campers planning a day out, runners and cyclists curious about a route, home cooks adjusting recipes for height, travelers heading to mountain towns, students and teachers, and anyone who has ever wondered how high they really are. People who are moving, filling in forms, or checking where a delivery will go use the ZIP code finder too.

Our commitments

  • We explain numbers in plain language and say what they do not tell you.
  • We name our data sources instead of hiding them.
  • We fix mistakes quickly. If you find one, please tell us.
  • We add features slowly and test them before they go live.

Get in touch

Questions, corrections or ideas for new tools are always welcome. Visit our Contact page.