NZ Elevation ToolsOpen Add Elevation on the map →

Terrain · Click a point

Find the ground elevation at any point in New Zealand

Get the elevation at a point anywhere in New Zealand: click the map and the tool returns the ground height in metres, interpolated from the LINZ 1 m LiDAR model.

A quick spot height for a floor level, a water tank, a pump or a survey check, and the difference between two places.

Spot elevation of 493 m shown in the panel with the point marked on the map
Add Elevation on Mt Iron, Wānaka. The walkthrough below shows how this was made.

Free to run · pay to download

Free to run, and free to save as a PNG image of the map. This tool has no file export of its own. For the terrain as a file, Download Data exports contours, a GeoTIFF or a 3D mesh with a pass: NZ$49 for 7 days or NZ$299 for 12 months.

Open Add Elevation on the map →Pass prices and what’s included

Who uses this

  • Owners and plumbers. Work out the fall from a tank to the house.
  • Surveyors. Sanity-check a level against the national model.

When to use it

  • You need a spot height for a floor level, a tank, a pump or a survey check.
  • You want to confirm the height difference between two places quickly.

Which tool for your job

Add Elevation is one step in a bigger question. These are the jobs it helps with, and the tools that go with it.

If you’re working on plans, cad, gis and 3d printing

I need the terrain as a file.

  1. 1.Download Data — Contours, a GeoTIFF elevation model or a 3D mesh for printing.
  2. 2.Contour Lines — Contours previewed on the map before you export them.
  3. 3.Elevate a File — Adds ground elevation to your own GPX, KML, GeoJSON or CSV points.
  4. 4.Add Elevation (this tool) — A single spot height, for a floor level or a tank.
  5. 5.Terrain Stats — The highest, lowest and mean ground height of an area, and how the land is spread between them.

How to use it

  1. Open Add Elevation and click the map. The elevation appears in the panel and as a marker.
  2. Click again for another point. Use Elevation Profile for a whole line.

Step by step: Mt Iron, Wānaka

We read a spot height near the top of Mt Iron.

Add Elevation panel asking for a click on the map
1.Open Add Elevation and click anywhere.
Spot elevation of 493 m shown in the panel with the point marked on the map
2.The ground at this point is 493 m, read from the LiDAR at about 2 m resolution. Click again to read another point.

What it showed

  • For a line of heights use Elevation Profile; for a whole file of points use Elevate a File.

Screenshots from NZ Elevation Tools. Aerial imagery from LINZ Basemaps. Sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed by Environment Southland, Otago Regional Council and Queenstown-Lakes District Council for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Try it on Mt Iron, Wānaka →

How it works

The 1 m LiDAR bare-earth model is sampled at the clicked coordinate, interpolating between the four nearest cells so the value is not snapped to a grid.

Reading the results

Metres above the LiDAR vertical datum, which is close to mean sea level. Compare with a survey benchmark before using it for design levels.

Limits and warnings

  • Where 1 m LiDAR has not been flown the tool falls back to the national 8 m elevation model, and the result says what share came from the fallback. The 8 m model was interpolated from 20 m map contours and is not fit for site-scale decisions.
  • Bare ground only. On a deck or a roof the value is the ground beneath it.

Data and attribution

Results come from the LINZ national 1 m LiDAR bare-earth elevation model, read in your browser, with the national 8 m model filling any gaps. Tools that use the surface model (Sunlight, Viewshed, Object Heights) read the matching LiDAR surface tiles.

Elevation and cadastral data is sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Copyright in each LiDAR survey belongs to the body that commissioned it — a regional or district council, Waka Kotahi, NIWA and around thirty others — rather than to LINZ, which hosts and processes the national dataset. Every file exported from this site names the licensors whose surveys cover the area, and anything you publish from those files carries the same attribution requirement. See https://www.linz.govt.nz/products-services/data/licensing-and-using-data/attributing-elevation-or-aerial-imagery-data

Questions

Is this height above sea level?

It is metres above the LiDAR vertical datum, which is close to mean sea level. Compare with a benchmark before using it for design levels.

Ready to try it?

Open Add Elevation on the map →

Free to use, no account. Runs in your browser on LINZ open data. Downloading the results needs a pass: see prices.