🗻 Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper

🚀 Look up ground elevation for any list of coordinates in seconds. Pull terrain altitude in meters from 11 global elevation datasets including SRTM 30m, NED 10m, EU-DEM 25m, ASTER 30m, ETOPO1, GEBCO 2020 bathymetry, Mapzen Terrarium, and more. Send a batch of lat/lng pairs, get back elevation, dataset name, and grid resolution per point.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-05-20 · 📊 7 fields per record · 🗻 11 elevation datasets · 🌍 Global coverage · 📐 8m to 1850m resolution

The Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper turns a list of {lat, lng} points into a clean dataset of elevations sampled from world-class open Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). It pulls from Open Topo Data, a self-hosted open service that wraps NASA SRTM, USGS NED, ESA Copernicus, NIWA, GEBCO, ETOPO, and other public DEMs into a single uniform interface. The Actor returns 7 clean fields per point: latitude, longitude, elevation in meters, dataset name, grid resolution in meters, interpolation method, and a timestamp.

Coverage is global. Pick SRTM 30m for worldwide land coverage, NED 10m for the United States, EU-DEM 25m for Europe, NZDEM 8m for New Zealand, GEBCO 2020 for ocean bathymetry, or ETOPO1 for a coarse but worldwide land + sea model. Each batch is delivered with the dataset attribution and the underlying grid resolution so downstream pipelines know exactly which model produced each number.

🎯 Target Audience	💡 Primary Use Cases
GIS developers, drone planners, hiking & outdoor apps, flood-risk analysts, civil engineers, route planners, weather modellers, environmental scientists	Drone mission elevation profiles, hiking trail gain charts, flood-risk overlays, line-of-sight calculations, watershed analysis, bathymetric route planning

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📋 What the Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper does

One precise workflow with eleven dataset choices:

• 📍 Batch elevation lookup. Send up to many thousands of coordinates per run, get back elevation per point.
• 🌐 Eleven open elevation models. SRTM 30m, SRTM 90m, ASTER 30m, NED 10m, NZDEM 8m, EU-DEM 25m, Mapzen Terrarium, EMODnet 2018 bathymetry, GEBCO 2020 bathymetry, ETOPO1, BKG 200m.
• 🧮 Three interpolation modes. Bilinear (default), nearest-neighbour, or cubic for smoother results at off-grid coordinates.
• 🪪 Dataset attribution. Every record records the dataset that produced the elevation, plus the grid resolution.
• 🚦 Polite rate-limit handling. The Actor respects the public service's published rate limit and backs off automatically on 429s.

💡 Why it matters: elevation is the single most-requested attribute for outdoor routing, drone path planning, and flood modelling, but stitching together the right DEM for each part of the world is a project in itself. This Actor gives you eleven trusted public models behind one consistent record shape.

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🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon: a 3-minute walkthrough showing how to go from sign-up to a downloaded elevation dataset.

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⚙️ Input

Input	Type	Default	Behavior
maxItems	integer	10	Coordinates to process. Free plan caps at 10, paid plan at 1,000,000.
dataset	enum	"srtm30m"	One of 11 supported elevation models.
coordinates	array	5 famous landmarks	List of {"lat": number, "lng": number} objects to look up.
interpolation	enum	"bilinear"	Sampling method: bilinear, nearest, or cubic.
customServer	string	""	Optional host override for users running a private elevation server.

No login required. This Actor works against the free public elevation service straight away.

Example: elevations of the world's tallest summits using SRTM 30m.

{
    "maxItems": 5,
    "dataset": "srtm30m",
    "coordinates": [
        { "lat": 27.988, "lng": 86.925 },
        { "lat": 35.881, "lng": 76.515 },
        { "lat": 27.700, "lng": 88.146 },
        { "lat": 28.755, "lng": 83.821 },
        { "lat": 27.961, "lng": 86.929 }
    ]
}

Example: U.S. urban benchmarks using high-resolution NED 10m.

{
    "maxItems": 3,
    "dataset": "ned10m",
    "interpolation": "cubic",
    "coordinates": [
        { "lat": 40.689, "lng": -74.045 },
        { "lat": 37.819, "lng": -122.478 },
        { "lat": 47.620, "lng": -122.349 }
    ]
}

⚠️ Good to Know: the public elevation service is rate-limited to 1 batch per second per source IP. The Actor honours that limit and will back off automatically on a 429 response. For very large runs, expect roughly 100 coordinates per second of throughput.

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📊 Output

Each record contains 7 fields. Download as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

🧾 Schema

Field	Type	Example
📍 latitude	number	27.988
📍 longitude	number	86.925
🗻 elevationMeters	number | null	8748
🛰️ dataset	string	"srtm30m"
📐 resolutionMeters	number | null	30
🧮 interpolation	string	"bilinear"
🕒 scrapedAt	ISO 8601	"2026-05-20T00:00:00.000Z"

📦 Sample records

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🌍	Global coverage. Eleven datasets, including land DEMs for every continent and ocean bathymetry.
📐	High-res options. 8m New Zealand DEM, 10m U.S. NED, 25m Europe DEM, 30m global SRTM.
🌊	Bathymetry included. GEBCO 2020 and EMODnet 2018 give you sea-floor depths anywhere on the planet.
🧮	Three sampling modes. Bilinear, nearest, and cubic interpolation so you can match the precision your application needs.
🪪	Provenance on every record. Dataset name and grid resolution stored per point.
🚦	Polite by design. Honours the public service rate limit and backs off on 429s automatically.
🆓	No login. No personal key required, no signup loop.

📊 Elevation is the single most-requested geospatial attribute for routing, drones, and flood modelling.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Resolution	Setup
⭐ Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Global, 11 datasets	Live per request	8m to 1850m	⚡ 2 min
Commercial elevation services	$99+/month	Global	Live	High	⏳ Hours
Self-hosted DEM tile stack	Servers + storage	Whatever you mirror	Whatever you build	High	🐢 Days
Static gridded CSV downloads	Free	Per-region	Manual	Variable	🕒 Hours

Pick this Actor when you want global elevation coverage, no servers to run, and proper dataset attribution on every record.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Pick a dataset, an interpolation mode, and supply your coordinates list.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor query each batch.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results from the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

🚁 Drones & aerial work Pre-flight elevation profiles for safe altitude planning Terrain-following waypoint generation Line-of-sight checks between control and aircraft Survey-mission ground-sample-distance calibration	🥾 Outdoor & fitness apps Hiking-trail elevation gain and loss charts Cycling-route gradient overlays Backcountry skiing slope-angle context Run-route difficulty scoring
🌊 Flood-risk & insurance Property-level above-sea-level scoring Watershed runoff modelling inputs Coastal-erosion baseline elevation snapshots Storm-surge exposure overlays	🏗️ Civil engineering & GIS Solar-panel siting elevation context Cell-tower line-of-sight planning Road-grade calculations for logistics routing Cut-and-fill volume estimates

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🔌 Automating Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper

Control the scraper programmatically for scheduled runs and pipeline integrations:

• 🟢 Node.js. Install the apify-client NPM package.
• 🐍 Python. Use the apify-client PyPI package.
• 📚 See the Apify API documentation for full details.

The Apify Schedules feature lets you trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Nightly batch elevation lookups, on-demand route planning, or live drone-mission preflight checks all run unattended.

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Glacier-retreat elevation studies Geomorphology coursework with real DEM samples Reproducible elevation datasets for climate papers Cross-DEM comparison studies for accuracy research	🎨 Personal and creative Personal hiking dashboards and elevation maps Indie outdoor app side projects Travel-blog elevation profiles for famous routes Hobbyist 3D terrain printing input data
🤝 Non-profit and civic Climate-resilience studies for vulnerable coasts Disaster-response staging on high-ground sites Watershed advocacy elevation context Volunteer trail-stewardship route mapping	🧪 Experimentation Train terrain-classification ML models Prototype agent pipelines that answer "how high is X?" Test drone path-planning algorithms with real DEMs Benchmark elevation accuracy across datasets

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🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

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❓ Frequently Asked Questions

🧩 How does it work?

Supply a list of {lat, lng} objects in the input, pick one of the eleven datasets, and click Start. The Actor batches your points, queries the public elevation service in chunks of up to 100, normalises the response, and writes one clean record per point.

🗺️ Which dataset should I pick?

For worldwide land coverage, SRTM 30m is the safe default. For the United States, NED 10m is higher resolution. For Europe, EU-DEM 25m. For New Zealand, NZDEM 8m. For oceans, GEBCO 2020 (global) or EMODnet 2018 (European seas). For a coarse but worldwide land + sea model, pick ETOPO1.

📐 What is the difference between bilinear, nearest, and cubic interpolation?

A coordinate rarely sits exactly on a DEM grid point. Bilinear averages the four neighbours and is the default. Nearest returns the value of the closest grid point (faster, but step-shaped). Cubic smooths across a 4x4 neighbourhood (slower, slightly higher fidelity for gradient analysis).

🚦 What is the rate limit?

The public elevation service allows roughly one batch per second per source IP. The Actor sends batches of 100 coordinates and waits between calls, so a 10,000-point run takes a couple of minutes.

📦 How many coordinates can I send in one run?

Up to 1,000,000 for paid plans. There is no hard per-run cap from the source itself, but very large runs will of course take time because of the polite rate limit.

🆓 Do I need a personal access key?

No. The public service is open and free to use within its rate limit. You only need an Apify account.

💼 Can I use this data commercially?

Yes. The underlying DEMs are public-domain or open-licensed reference data. Each dataset has its own attribution requirements (NASA SRTM, USGS NED, ESA Copernicus, etc.), and the dataset field on every record tells you which one was used so you can attribute correctly.

⏰ Can I schedule daily runs?

Yes. Use Apify Schedules to trigger this Actor on any cron interval. Nightly elevation enrichment for new addresses is a common pattern.

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan?

No. The free Apify plan covers testing and small runs (10 coordinates per run). A paid plan lifts the cap and unlocks scheduling and higher concurrency.

🔁 What happens if a single batch fails?

The Actor retries transient errors automatically. If a batch still fails after retries, the Actor writes one record per coordinate with elevationMeters: null and an error note, so your downstream pipeline gets a row for every input.

🌊 Does it include ocean depths?

Yes. Pick GEBCO 2020 for global bathymetry or EMODnet 2018 for European seas. Negative elevation values are sea floor depth in meters.

🆘 What if I need help?

Contact our support team through the Apify platform or the Tally form linked below.

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🔌 Integrate with any app

Open Topo Data Elevation Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe elevation data into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh elevations into your drone-planning service, or post a daily route digest into Slack.

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🔗 Recommended Actors

• 🗺️ Nominatim OSM Scraper - Geocode addresses via OpenStreetMap
• ✈️ OurAirports Global Airport Database Scraper - Worldwide aviation reference data
• 🏕️ Recreation.gov Campsites Scraper - U.S. federal recreation catalogue
• 🌤️ NOAA Weather Scraper - U.S. weather forecasts and observations
• 📈 Indexmundi Scraper - Global demographic and economic indicators

💡 Pro Tip: browse the complete ParseForge collection for more geospatial scrapers.

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🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form to request a new scraper, propose a custom data project, or report an issue.

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⚠️ Disclaimer: this Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Open Topo Data, NASA, USGS, ESA, NIWA, GEBCO, NOAA, or any other DEM provider. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Only publicly accessible open elevation data is queried, and the underlying DEMs retain their own attribution requirements.