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My Current Elevation

Editorial policy

Last updated

MyCurrentElevation.org publishes elevation tools, place pages and printable maps. This page explains how we decide what goes on them and how we keep it accurate. It applies to every page on the site.

How we choose sources

  • Primary public data first. Elevations come from the U.S. Geological Survey (3D Elevation Program, the Elevations and Distances table, GNIS place names) and NOAA's National Geodetic Survey. Boundaries, population and land area come from the U.S. Census Bureau; airport elevations from the FAA. Outside the US we use Terrain Tiles, an open elevation dataset on AWS.
  • An official figure from its publisher. When a place has a well-known official elevation (Denver's 5,280 ft step, the 2015 USGS survey of Denali) we cite the publisher directly, with a link and the date we read it.
  • No unsourced numbers. We do not copy figures from other elevation websites, encyclopedias or AI answers. Wikidata is used only for values that cite their own source, and the page names that source.
  • Health, food-safety and flood content cites USDA, CDC, NOAA or FEMA and carries a disclaimer.

How numbers are computed and checked

  • Place figures are produced by scripts that query the sources above and write a data file. Nobody types a number into a page by hand, so a fix to the data reaches every page that uses it.
  • Estimates we make ourselves, such as a city's highest and lowest ground or a state's average elevation, are labelled "sampled" and the page says how many points were used. The methodology page gives every method.
  • Feet come first, with meters alongside, converted at exactly 0.3048 m per foot.
  • The build fails if a page is missing its title, description or main heading, or links to a page that does not exist. A place page needs at least eight place-specific data points; thinner pages are kept out of search results.
  • Before a batch of pages is published, a random 10% is checked by hand against the USGS National Map and one independent source, and recorded in our QA log. Where an official figure and the USGS value differ by more than 150 ft, the page explains why.
  • New pages go to a private, non-indexed staging copy of the site first. They are published only after Ankit Kumar has reviewed them there and approved them by name.

How AI tools are used

We use AI assistants to help write the site's code and data scripts and to draft page text. They speed up the work; they are not a source.

  • AI does not supply facts or figures. Every number on a page comes from a script reading a named dataset, or from an official publication we cite. If AI-drafted text contains a figure, the figure is replaced by the computed value or removed.
  • A person reviews everything before it is published. Ankit Kumar reads every new page and template on staging, checks sample figures against their sources, and approves each release by name. Nothing reaches the live site without that approval.
  • Templates, not mass-produced pages. Pages that share a layout, like the state map pages, are written from each place's own data. A page that would only swap a place name is not published.
  • The named author is responsible for the content, whoever or whatever drafted it.

How often data is refreshed

  • Tools: each lookup asks USGS (or Terrain Tiles outside the US) at the time you use it. Results are cached on our server for up to 90 days, so the same point returns the same value.
  • Place pages and maps: rebuilt from the sources at least once a year, and sooner when a source publishes a new release (the Census Bureau's yearly boundary and population files, a new USGS survey, an updated NGS datasheet) or when a correction is needed. Each page shows the date its data was built.
  • Policy and trust pages show the date they were last changed.

How we handle conflicting sources

Elevation sources often disagree by a few feet, sometimes by more. Our rules, in order:

  • Name the point that was measured. A summit, a survey mark near it, a city-center point and an airport runway are different places. We say which one each figure refers to.
  • Prefer the current datum. Heights on NAVD 88, the current US vertical datum, come before older NGVD 29 figures; when we show an older figure we label its datum.
  • For summits: an official figure we can cite from its publisher, then a NOAA NGS survey mark on the summit, then the USGS Elevations and Distances table, then a sourced Wikidata value; otherwise the USGS grid value, labelled as such.
  • Show both when they differ. The headline uses the preferred figure; the other appears beside it with its source. Pikes Peak, for example, shows the 14,115 ft summit figure from the City of Colorado Springs and the 14,105 ft NGS survey mark in the note.
  • Large unexplained differences (over 150 ft) are flagged in our QA log and checked by hand before the page is published.

Corrections

Found a mistake? Email support@mycurrentelevation.org. Every confirmed error is fixed and listed with its date on the corrections page.

Advertising and independence

The site is funded by ads served by Google AdSense. Advertisers have no say in what we publish, ads never appear above a tool, and no page is written to favor an advertiser.