At 20,310 feet (6.2km) above sea level, the highest point in the United States is Denali, Alaska (formerly known as Mount McKinley). The highest point in the contiguous United States is Mount Whitney, in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California; followed by Mount Elbert, Colorado - the highest point in the Rocky Mountains. When looking at the highest point in each state, the 13 tallest peaks are all found in the western region of the country, while there is much more diversity across the other regions and territories.

Despite being approximately 6,500 feet lower than Denali, Hawaii's Mauna Kea is sometimes considered the tallest mountain (and volcano) on earth. This is because its base is well below sea level - the mountain has a total height of 33,474 feet, which is almost 4,500 feet higher than Mount Everest.

The United States has an average elevation of roughly 2,500 feet (763m) above sea level, however there is a stark contrast in elevations across the country. Highest states Colorado is the highest state in the United States, with an average elevation of 6,800 feet (2,074m) above sea level. The 10 states with the highest average elevation are all in the western region of the country, as this is, by far, the most mountainous region in the country. The largest mountain ranges in the contiguous western states are the Rocky Mountains, Sierra Nevada, and Cascade Range, while the Appalachian Mountains is the longest range in the east - however, the highest point in the U.S. is Denali (Mount McKinley), found in Alaska. Lowest states At just 60 feet above sea level, Delaware is the state with the lowest elevation. Delaware is the second smallest state, behind Rhode Island, and is located on the east coast. Larger states with relatively low elevations are found in the southern region of the country - both Florida and Louisiana have an average elevation of just 100 feet (31m) above sea level, and large sections of these states are extremely vulnerable to flooding and rising sea levels, as well as intermittent tropical storms.

The highest city in the world with a population of more than one million is La Paz. The Capital of Bolivia sits ***** meters above sea level, and is more than 1,000 meters higher than the second-ranked city, Quito. La Paz is also higher than Mt. Fuji in Japan, which has a height of 3,776 meters. Many of the world's largest cities are located in South America. The only city in North America that makes the top 20 list is Denver, Colorado, which has an altitude of ***** meters.

The National High Altitude Photography (NHAP) program, which was operated from 1980 - 1989, was coordinated by the U.S. Geological Survey as an interagency project to eliminate duplicate photography in various Government programs. The aim of the program was to cover the 48 conterminous states of the USA over a 5-year span. In the NHAP program, black-and-white and color-infrared aerial photographs were obtained on 9-inch film from an altitude of 40,000 feet above mean terrain elevation and are centered over USGS 7.5-minute quadrangles. The color-infrared photographs are at a scale of 1:58,000 (1 inch equals about .9 miles) and the black-and-white photographs are at a scale of 1:80,000 (1 inch equals about 1.26 miles).

United States US: Urban Population Living in Areas Where Elevation is Below 5 meters: % of Total Population data was reported at 2.264 % in 2010. This records an increase from the previous number of 2.246 % for 2000. United States US: Urban Population Living in Areas Where Elevation is Below 5 meters: % of Total Population data is updated yearly, averaging 2.264 % from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2010, with 3 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2.329 % in 1990 and a record low of 2.246 % in 2000. United States US: Urban Population Living in Areas Where Elevation is Below 5 meters: % of Total Population data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Land Use, Protected Areas and National Wealth. Urban population below 5m is the percentage of the total population, living in areas where the elevation is 5 meters or less.; ; Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)/Columbia University. 2013. Urban-Rural Population and Land Area Estimates Version 2. Palisades, NY: NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/data/set/lecz-urban-rural-population-land-area-estimates-v2.; Weighted Average;

Since the late 1950s, the USGS has maintained a long-term glacier mass-balance program at three North American glaciers. Measurements began on South Cascade Glacier, WA in 1958, expanding to Gulkana and Wolverine glaciers, AK in 1966, and later Sperry Glacier, MT in 2005. Additional measurements have been made on Lemon Creek Glacier, AK to compliment data collected by the Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP; Pelto and others, 2013). Direct field measurements are combined with weather data and imagery analyses to estimate the seasonal and annual mass balance at each glacier in both a conventional and reference surface format (Cogley and others, 2011). High-altitude measurements of meteorological data have been collected since the beginning of the USGS Benchmark Glacier Program adjacent to glaciers in order to support related science. This portion of the data collection includes select weather data that has received basic quality control and assurance. Data is released at three different levels of processing, level 0, 1 and 2. Level 0 data contains compiled raw data, before QC procedures are applied, at the original timestep recorded by the instrument. Level 1 data has received a plausible value check, and minimal manual error identification (e.g. errors noted on field visits). Level 2 data has been through more extensive quality control procedures and is provided at both the original instrument timestep as well as aggregated hourly and daily values. However, beyond the procedures detailed in this document, no additional steps have been taken to manually assure quality of the data. Data outside the main record of temperature and precipitation at each site should be considered preliminary, and be utilized with increased scrutiny.

Comprehensive dataset containing 28 verified High Peak locations in United States with complete contact information, ratings, reviews, and location data.

At 282 feet below sea level, Death Valley in the Mojave Desert, California is the lowest point of elevation in the United States (and North America). Coincidentally, Death Valley is less than 85 miles from Mount Whitney, the highest point of elevation in the mainland United States. Death Valley is one of the hottest places on earth, and in 1913 it was the location of the highest naturally occurring temperature ever recorded on Earth (although some meteorologists doubt its legitimacy). New Orleans Louisiana is the only other state where the lowest point of elevation was below sea level. This is in the city of New Orleans, on the Mississippi River Delta. Over half of the city (up to two-thirds) is located below sea level, and recent studies suggest that the city is sinking further - man-made efforts to prevent water damage or flooding are cited as one reason for the city's continued subsidence, as they prevent new sediment from naturally reinforcing the ground upon which the city is built. These factors were one reason why New Orleans was so severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 - the hurricane itself was one of the deadliest in history, and it destroyed many of the levee systems in place to prevent flooding, and the elevation exacerbated the damage caused. Highest low points The lowest point in five states is over 1,000 feet above sea level. Colorado's lowest point, at 3,315 feet, is still higher than the highest point in 22 states or territories. For all states whose lowest points are found above sea level, these points are located in rivers, streams, or bodies of water.

A detailed airborne gravity gradiometry, magnetic, and radiometric survey of Mountain Pass, California was flown by CGG Canada Services Ltd. (CGG). The high-resolution helicopter survey was flown at a flight-line spacing of 100 and 200 m, a flight-line azimuth of 70 degrees, a nominal flight-line elevation above ground of 70 m, and consists of about 1,814 line-kilometers. Tie lines were spaced at a 1-km interval with a flight-line azimuth of 160 degrees. Data were collected using a HeliFALCON airborne gravity gradiometry system, Scintrex CS-3 cesium magnetometer, Radiation Solutions RS-500 spectrometer, and Riegl LMS-Q1401-80n laser scanner and processed by CGG. Gravity gradiometry data include corrections for residual aircraft motion, self gradient, terrain corrections, and tie-line and micro-levelling. Magnetic data were corrected by the contractor for diurnal variations of the Earth’s magnetic field, tie-line leveled, micro-leveled, and an International Geomagnetic Reference Field of the Earth was removed. Radiometric data include corrections for aircraft and cosmic background radiation, radon background, Compton scattering effects, and variations in altitude. Data are provided in ASCII (.csv) and Geosoft database (.gdb) format, database channels and descriptions are listed in the survey report, and grids of gravity and hillshade are in ASCII Grid eXchange Format (.gxf). Maps and grids of magnetic and radiometric data were released by Ponce and Denton (2018a-d). References: Ponce, D.A., and Denton, K.M., 2018a, Aeromagnetic map of Mountain Pass and vicinity, California and Nevada: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3412-B, 6 p., 1 pl., scale 1:62,500, https://doi.org/10.3133/sim3412B. Ponce, D.A., and Denton, K.M., 2018b, High-resolution aeromagnetic survey of Mountain Pass, California: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/doi:10.5066/P92XVOOF. Ponce, D.A., and Denton, K.M., 2018c, Airborne radiometric maps of Mountain Pass, California: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Map 3412-C, 6 p., 1 pl., scale 1:62,500, https://doi.org/10.3133/sim3412C. Ponce, D.A., and Denton, K.M., 2018d, High-resolution airborne radiometric survey of Mountain Pass, California: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P9ENLS6D.

Comprehensive dataset containing 28 verified Round Top Mountain locations in United States with complete contact information, ratings, reviews, and location data.

The U.S. Interagency Elevation Inventory (USIEI) displays high-accuracy topographic and bathymetric data for the United States and its territories. The project is a collaborative effort between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture - Natural Resources Conservation Service and U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This resource is a comprehensive, nationwide listing of known high-accuracy topographic data, including lidar and IfSAR, and bathymetric data, including NOAA hydrographic surveys, multibeam data, and bathymetric lidar. This zip file contains the attribute information and footprints about the data sets that are displayed in the Topographic Lidar, Topobathy Shoreline Lidar, IfSAR Data, and Bathymetric Lidar layers in the USIEI viewer. This does not include the elevation data itself. The data are provided in Esri file geodatabase format (gdb) and in the open format of OGC GeoPackage (gpkg). The data is also available via this map service: https://coast.noaa.gov/arcgis/rest/services/USInteragencyElevationInventory/USIEIv2/MapServer. The data is updated quarterly. The information provided for each elevation data set includes many attributes such as vertical accuracy, point spacing, and date of collection. A direct link to access the data or information about the contact organization is also available through the inventory. The footprints in this data set are generalized to represent the coverage of the collection. If the exact data coverage is needed, please contact the data provider for an authoritative footprint. The fields in the gdb and gpkg are in four tables. The fields in each table are listed in the Entity Attribute Overview field.

This is a tiled collection of the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) and is one meter resolution. The 3DEP data holdings serve as the elevation layer of The National Map, and provide foundational elevation information for earth science studies and mapping applications in the United States. Scientists and resource managers use 3DEP data for hydrologic modeling, resource monitoring, mapping and visualization, and many other applications. The elevations in this DEM represent the topographic bare-earth surface. USGS standard one-meter DEMs are produced exclusively from high resolution light detection and ranging (lidar) source data of one-meter or higher resolution. One-meter DEM surfaces are seamless within collection projects, but, not necessarily seamless across projects. The spatial reference used for tiles of the one-meter DEM within the conterminous United States (CONUS) is Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) in units of meters, and in conformance with the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD83). All bare earth elevation values are in meters and are referenced to the North American Vertical Datum of 1988 (NAVD88). Each tile is distributed in the UTM Zone in which it lies. If a tile crosses two UTM zones, it is delivered in both zones. The one-meter DEM is the highest resolution standard DEM offered in the 3DEP product suite. Other 3DEP products are nationally seamless DEMs in resolutions of 1/3, 1, and 2 arc seconds. These seamless DEMs were referred to as the National Elevation Dataset (NED) from about 2000 through 2015 at which time they became the seamless DEM layers under the 3DEP program and the NED name and system were retired. Other 3DEP products include five-meter DEMs in Alaska as well as various source datasets including the lidar point cloud and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (Ifsar) digital surface models and intensity images. All 3DEP products are public domain.

This component of IFR Enroute Aeronautical Chart series is designed to meet the needs of users who require a high altitude digital version chart for the U.S. This version is in GEO-TIFF format.

A nationwide listing of known publicly available high-accuracy topographic and bathymetric source elevation data for the United States and its territories. The inventory provides a single resource for information about all known completed and in-progress broad-area public domain elevation data. The information provided for each elevation dataset includes many attributes such as vertical accuracy, point spacing, and date of collection. A direct link to access the data or information about the contact organization is also available through the inventory. The United States Interagency Elevation Inventory raises awareness of and increases access to existing elevation data, thereby reducing data duplication efforts. It helps to identify data gaps and informs and encourages collaboration on future data collection efforts. The inventory displays data set boundaries and provides information about the elevation data but does not host the data itself. If available, links to access the data, metadata, and reports are included. The inventory viewer uses map services from multiple sources to provide information both topography and bathymetry. Map services from NOAA NCEI display the footprints and attribute information for the NOAA Hydrographic Surveys, Multibeam Bathymetry, and Trackline Surveys. A map service from USACE provides the USACE Hydrographic Surveys. Map services from NOAA Office for Coastal Management provide the bulk of the topographic and bathymetric lidar information. The NOAA NCEI and USACE service are updated regularly as new data in ingested. The data supporting the NOAA OCM hosted services are maintained by a partnership of federal agencies and supports the federal elevation theme. The agencies include NOAA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This service is updated quarterly through an active process of data discovery and validation.

This component of IFR Enroute Aeronautical Chart series is designed to meet the needs of users who require a high altitude digital version chart for the U.S. This version is in PDF format.

Financial overview and grant giving statistics of United States High Altitude Speed Skating Foundation

The High Accuracy Elevation Data Project collected elevation data (meters) on a 400 meter topographic grid with a vertical accuracy of +/- 15 centimeters to define the topography in South Florida. The data are referenced to the horizontal datum North American Datum 1983 (NAD 83) and the vertical datum North American Vertical Datum 1988 (NAVD 88). The High Accuracy Elevation Data Project began with a pilot study in FY 1995 to determine if the then state-of-the-art GPS technology could be used to perform a topographic survey that would meet the vertical accuracy requirements of the hydrologic modeling community. The initial testing platform was from a truck and met the accuracy requirements. Data were collected in areas near Homestead, Florida. The data are available for the areas shown on the USGS High Accuracy Elevation Data graphic at http://sofia.usgs.gov/exchange/desmond/desmondelev.html.

The statistic shows the highest mountains in North America.

Digital elevation model used for the conservation assessment of Greater Sage-grouse and sagebrush habitat conducted by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Digital elevation models were downloaded from the USGS National Elevation Dataset (NED) which was developed by merging the highest-resolution, best quality elevation data available across the United States into a seamless raster format to provide 1:24,000-scale Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data for the conterminous US.

High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) Market Outlook

As per our latest research, the global High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) market size in 2024 stands at USD 1.23 billion, driven by rising demand for persistent surveillance, advanced communication systems, and rapid disaster response capabilities. The market is poised for robust expansion, projected to reach USD 7.41 billion by 2033, reflecting a compelling CAGR of 22.1% from 2025 to 2033. This remarkable growth trajectory is underpinned by technological advancements in autonomous systems, increasing investments from both public and private sectors, and the strategic necessity for resilient communication infrastructure across diverse industries.

The primary growth factor propelling the High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) market is the escalating need for uninterrupted, high-bandwidth communication in remote and underserved regions. As global connectivity becomes a critical enabler of economic and social development, HAPS platforms are emerging as a cost-effective alternative to traditional satellite and terrestrial infrastructure. Their ability to hover at stratospheric altitudes for extended periods allows for continuous coverage, making them ideal for bridging the digital divide in rural and isolated areas. Furthermore, the proliferation of 5G networks and the anticipated surge in Internet of Things (IoT) devices necessitate robust backhaul solutions, for which HAPS platforms are uniquely suited due to their large coverage footprint and low latency capabilities.

Another significant driver is the increasing adoption of HAPS for surveillance, monitoring, and disaster management applications. Governments and defense organizations are leveraging these platforms for persistent intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions, border security, and maritime monitoring. The agility and flexibility of HAPS platforms enable rapid deployment in disaster-stricken regions, providing real-time situational awareness and supporting emergency response operations. Additionally, environmental monitoring agencies utilize HAPS to gather high-resolution data on climate patterns, pollution levels, and natural resource management, further expanding the market’s addressable applications.

Technological innovation remains at the forefront of market growth, with advancements in lightweight materials, solar-powered propulsion, and autonomous navigation systems enhancing the operational efficiency and endurance of HAPS platforms. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms enables sophisticated onboard data processing, reducing reliance on ground stations and enabling real-time analytics. These innovations not only extend mission durations but also lower operational costs, making HAPS solutions increasingly attractive for commercial and governmental end-users alike. As competition intensifies, industry players are investing heavily in research and development to unlock new functionalities and expand the operational envelope of these platforms.

Regionally, North America currently leads the HAPS market, accounting for the largest revenue share in 2024, followed closely by Asia Pacific and Europe. The United States, in particular, benefits from robust defense spending, strong technological infrastructure, and a vibrant ecosystem of aerospace innovators. Asia Pacific, however, is anticipated to exhibit the highest growth rate over the forecast period, fueled by substantial investments in telecommunications infrastructure, increasing government initiatives for rural connectivity, and growing adoption of smart city solutions. Europe remains a key contributor, driven by cross-border collaborations and regulatory support for high-altitude platform technologies. Meanwhile, Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are witnessing gradual adoption, primarily for disaster management and remote area connectivity.

Platform Type Analysis

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