Elevation Finder Online

Terrain elevation in metres for any point in Vietnam and nearby (Copernicus DEM 90 m): one point, 100 points or a path profile with gain and loss.

Result

Press “Run” to see the result.

lat + lon returns the height above mean sea level (EGM2008 geoid) at that point, interpolated bilinearly between the four surrounding samples of the Copernicus DEM GLO-90 grid (3 arc-seconds, about 90 m). points takes up to 100 points ([[lat, lon], …], [{lat, lon}] or lat,lon|lat,lon). path (a polyline of up to 100 vertices, or a GeoJSON LineString) with samples (2–500, default 100) returns an elevation profile at evenly spaced distances plus start / end / min / max height, total gain and loss and the steepest grade.

Coverage: the box 8–24° N, 102–110° E (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and parts of Thailand and southern China). The open sea has no DEM tile and returns 0 (source: "ocean"); points outside the box return null (out_of_coverage). The DEM is a surface model: it includes buildings and forest canopy, so heights in cities and forests are a few metres above the ground, and narrow peaks are smoothed (Fansipan reads about 3 100 m for 3 143 m).

Licence: Copernicus DEM, free for commercial use with the attribution returned in attribution (keep it visible). The tiles are static: they are rebuilt only when Copernicus publishes a new release.

Use this in your code

curl -X POST "https://apibox.io.vn/v1/elevation" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"path":[[22.3367,103.8438],[22.3033,103.775]],"samples":50}'

const res = await fetch('https://apibox.io.vn/v1/elevation', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    Authorization: 'Bearer YOUR_API_KEY',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    "path": [
      [
        22.3367,
        103.8438
      ],
      [
        22.3033,
        103.775
      ]
    ],
    "samples": 50
  }),
});
const data = await res.json();
console.log(data);

import requests

res = requests.post(
    "https://apibox.io.vn/v1/elevation",
    headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"},
    json={"path": [[22.3367, 103.8438], [22.3033, 103.775]], "samples": 50},
    timeout=30,
)
print(res.json())

<?php
$ch = curl_init('https://apibox.io.vn/v1/elevation');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_CUSTOMREQUEST => 'POST',
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => ['Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY', 'Content-Type: application/json'],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => '{"path":[[22.3367,103.8438],[22.3033,103.775]],"samples":50}',
]);
$response = curl_exec($ch);
print_r(json_decode($response, true));

API documentation → Get a free API key

FAQ

How accurate is it?

Copernicus GLO-90 has a typical vertical error of a few metres on flat open ground, more on steep slopes; at 90 m spacing it cannot see small hills, embankments or single buildings.

Why is the value higher than the ground in a city?

It is a digital surface model: roofs and tree tops are part of the surface. Use it for terrain, not for the floor level of a building.

Will other countries be added?

The first version covers Vietnam and its neighbours. The same pipeline can extend the box later.