Skip to main content

Sherman Civil Engineering

What Is Elevation? Understanding Height Above Sea Level

According to Wikipedia, the elevation of a geographic location is it’s height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth’s sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vertical datum). The term elevation is mainly used when referring to points on the Earth’s surface, while altitude or geopotential height is used for points above […]