California cities and towns that sit below sea level
The California cities and towns on this list sit below sea level — more of them in Imperial County than in any other.
These towns aren't ranked against each other. A published elevation is a single point chosen to represent a town, not a reading of the whole town, and different sources choose different points. Each figure here is one such reading, so we do not say which of these towns sits lowest. They're listed alphabetically below.
Calipatria, Westmorland and Brawley sit more than 100 feet below sea level.
Lowest towns in California
8 of 8| Town | County | Elevation (approx., ft) |
|---|---|---|
| Brawley Below sea level | Imperial County | −113 ft |
| Calipatria Below sea level | Imperial County | −180 ft |
| Coachella Below sea level | Riverside County | −69 ft |
| El Centro Below sea level | Imperial County | −42 ft |
| Holtville Below sea level | Imperial County | −10 ft |
| Imperial Below sea level | Imperial County | −62 ft |
| Indio Below sea level | Riverside County | −12 ft |
| Westmorland Below sea level | Imperial County | −164 ft |
The towns on this list sit in the Salton Sink and Coachella Valley, an ancient lake bed that forms a genuine below-sea-level desert basin.
This list is one slice of the full List. The City List with Coordinates carries every U.S. city, town, and township — each with its elevation, coordinates, and county in one CSV.
- The City List with Coordinates page has a free 100-row sample — download it to see the columns first.
- Need one town's elevation and coordinates? The city geocoder tool returns a single place, free.
- Get the City List with Coordinates ($29) for the complete file.
- Working from ZIP codes instead? The ZIP code lookup tool covers those.
Lowest towns in other states
Same franchise, state by state.
Methodology & sources
About this list. Incorporated cities and towns are municipalities recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau; census-designated places, townships, and unincorporated communities are not included. Elevation figures come from the U.S. Geological Survey's 3D Elevation Program. Each elevation is approximate. A town does not have one single elevation — different sources choose different points to represent it, so the figure depends on which point is measured, and ours can differ from the figure other sources publish. The elevation column in our downloadable City lists is sampled separately, and often differs from the figure shown here. Where a candidate town's figures don't hold together well enough to stand behind, it's left out rather than the list padded — so some states run to fewer than ten. Elevations round to the nearest foot; where a figure sits exactly at the half-foot mark, it rounds away from zero, so a below-sea-level elevation is never understated.