Free Elevation Data for Wisconsin

Wisconsin's elevation data is public: lidar flown for the state and assembled by the USGS into a seamless model anyone can download. Here is where it lives, what you may do with it, and where the real cost actually sits.

What is free

Ground elevations come from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) seamless bare-earth model, with elevations above NAVD 88. Source cells are 3.3 ft per pixel in the finest work units, with about 9.8 ft per pixel and 33 ft per pixel sources elsewhere. USGS elevation data is public domain. Lidar coverage and source dates vary across Wisconsin. Check your site against the USGS 3DEP work-unit index; an unavailable lookup means coverage is unknown. Being in the public domain means no fee, no account and no restriction on commercial use. County lidar products are published by each county on its own terms. More from the USGS 3D Elevation Program and Wisconsin elevation resources.

Dataset	Resolution	What it is good for
USGS 3DEP seamless DEM	3.3 ft per pixel where lidar exists, about 33 ft per pixel elsewhere	Bare-earth ground. Fine contours, slope, drainage, cut and fill, building pads — anything where a foot or two matters.
County lidar products	Varies by county	Local bare-earth models, and in some counties a surface model of tree crowns and roofs. Check each county's date, units and terms.
Lidar point clouds (LAS/LAZ)	varies by project	The raw lidar returns before gridding, for custom classification and forestry work.
USGS topographic maps	one fixed contour interval per sheet	The published map series, with names, roads and trails, as printable sheets.
Basemap and hillshade tiles	n/a	Pre-rendered topographic and relief tiles to put behind a web map.

Where to get it

The same underlying data is published several ways for different needs. Picking the wrong one is the most common way to lose an afternoon.

The National Map Downloader — USGS's download tool for 3DEP elevation tiles, lidar point clouds and the topographic map series. Start here if you want files.
3DEP elevation image service — the seamless model as a public service that exports a GeoTIFF of any area. Best for programmatic access; it is what this site reads.
Wisconsin elevation and lidar data — the State Cartographer's Office directory of Wisconsin elevation sources, including county lidar.
USGS Topo basemap — rendered map tiles rather than data. Use it when you want a topographic backdrop and are not measuring anything.

Check what exists over your area first

Lidar projects differ in age and point density from one valley to the next. Search an address before you commit to a download.

Check lidar coverage →

What public domain actually allows

Public domain is as permissive as it gets, and people routinely assume it is more restrictive than it is. With USGS 3DEP data you may:

use it commercially, including in paid client work;
redistribute it, in whole or in part;
create and sell derived works — contour plans, maps, models, reports;
modify, reproject, resample and combine it with other data.

A credit to the USGS 3D Elevation Program is appreciated. County lidar products carry each county's own terms and credit. Every file from Download Data carries the USGS credit for you.

USGS NAIP aerial photography is public domain too. The Download Data tool delivers it as a georeferenced color photo of your area, about 1 ft per pixel where available, with a world file for GIS and CAD.

Free data is not the same as a free answer

This is the part worth being straight about. The data costs nothing. Turning it into something you can act on costs time, whichever route you take.

Say you want 1-ft contours over one acreage near Wausau. Working from raw data, that means finding the tiles that cover the parcel, downloading and merging them, reprojecting, converting between metric and US units where sources differ, clipping to the parcel, generating contours, tidying the artifacts around water and missing data, and exporting to DXF for whoever asked. QGIS does all of it, and QGIS is free. It is still an afternoon the first time.

Every tool built on this data, including this one, exists to remove that afternoon. Know that this is the choice you are making, rather than assuming a paid tool has better data: in Wisconsin everybody is reading the same public elevation model.

Skip the GeoTIFFs

The same public data, no download, no GIS install. Pick an area or click a parcel and get the output rather than the input.

Generate contoursAny interval from 1 ft, exportable as DXF, GeoJSON, PDF and more Download elevation dataThe DEM itself for an area you choose, as GeoTIFF Elevation profileDraw a line, get the climb, the descent and the grade Property terrain reportSlope, aspect, contours and hillshade as a PDF

Doing it yourself in QGIS

If you would rather own the workflow, the short version:

Install QGIS. It is free, open source and the standard tool for this.
Find your tiles in The National Map Downloader, or request a GeoTIFF of exactly your area from the 3DEP elevation image service.
Mind the units and projections. USGS publishes 3DEP elevations in meters; county lidar is often in WISCRS county coordinates in US survey feet. Mixing them silently is the most common source of a result that looks almost right.
Clip to your area before processing, not after. Contouring a whole county to keep one field is how an afternoon becomes a day.
Use Raster → Extraction → Contour for contours, and the GDAL DEM tools for slope, aspect and hillshade.

The guide to downloading DEM data goes through this in more detail, including what DEM, DSM and DTM mean and which one you want.

Data sources and further reading

Everything described on this page comes from these sources. All of them are public and free to use.

Primary sources

USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) seamless DEM — The bare-earth source for terrain tiles, contours, profiles, statistics, downloads and elevation added to files. Source resolution varies: 3.3 ft per pixel in the finest work units, with older lidar and coarser seamless data elsewhere. Elevations are above NAVD 88. Public domain. Selecting a fine output grid cannot create detail missing from the source.
Wisconsin State Cartographer’s Office elevation and lidar resources — A directory of Wisconsin elevation and lidar resources. This site uses the USGS 3DEP index for work-unit coverage and available project metadata; it does not infer an acquisition date or accuracy for all Wisconsin from one project.
Brown County regional lidar digital surface model — Optional surface data for Brown County only, including roofs and tree canopy as recorded by that source. Sunlight, Viewshed and Sightline use bare-earth fallback outside usable surface coverage; Object Heights has no supported result without surface data. The surface and 3DEP ground model can have different source dates and processing. Credit: Brown County, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Statewide Parcel Map Initiative — Parcel boundaries aggregated from local governments by the Wisconsin State Cartographer’s Office and Wisconsin Land Information Program. The Property tool queries the public statewide service. Local gaps, outdated boundaries and missing identifiers can occur; no parcel found is not proof that land is unowned. Parcel maps are not legal surveys.
USGS Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) — Wisconsin place names for search, including towns, peaks, lakes, streams and other named features.
Basemaps — USGS Topo and Esri World Imagery — USGS Topo, shaded relief rendered from 3DEP, and Esri World Imagery (Imagery: Esri, Maxar, Earthstar Geographics, and the GIS User Community) provide map context. The aerial basemap is display-only. Downloadable aerial photos come from public-domain USGS NAIP imagery.

Search, basemaps and terms

USGS copyrights and credits — The USGS public-domain policy and requested credits. Other publishers’ layers have their own terms.

Related guides

Lidar coverage in Wisconsin — the lidar project behind any address.
Download DEM data for Wisconsin — DEM, DSM and DTM explained, and how to get the raw files.
Lidar data for Wisconsin — what lidar is and how Wisconsin was flown.
Contour lines for Wisconsin — generating and exporting contours in every format.
Custom topographic maps — how they differ from USGS quads.

Frequently asked questions

Is elevation data free in Wisconsin?

Yes. The USGS 3D Elevation Program publishes a seamless bare-earth elevation model — 3.3 ft per pixel where lidar exists, about 33 ft per pixel elsewhere — as a U.S. Government work in the public domain. There is no charge to download it. Many Wisconsin counties publish their own lidar products too, each on its own terms.

Can I use free elevation data commercially?

USGS 3DEP elevation data and USGS maps are U.S. Government works in the public domain: you may use the results, including commercially. A credit to the USGS 3D Elevation Program is appreciated, and every file you download carries it. Wisconsin parcel boundaries are aggregated local-government data, not legal surveys; the parcel disclaimer accompanies the selection. Brown County surface data is credited separately when used. The Esri aerial basemap follows Esri’s terms and is display-only; downloadable aerial photos use USGS NAIP.

What is the catch with free elevation data?

The data is genuinely free and genuinely good. The cost is in using it. Turning raw tiles into a contour map means finding the right tiles, merging them, reprojecting, converting between metric and US units where sources differ, clipping to your area, generating contours at your interval and exporting to a format your software reads. That is an afternoon in QGIS the first time. Tools built on this data charge for that work, not for the data.

Where can I download free DEM data for Wisconsin?

The National Map Downloader from USGS is the main route for 3DEP elevation tiles and lidar point clouds. The State Cartographer’s Office keeps a directory of Wisconsin elevation and lidar sources, including county lidar. The 3DEP elevation image service can also export a GeoTIFF of any area directly, which is what this site reads.

How accurate is the free data?

Accuracy depends on the source project, its date and how well ground was measured; this site does not assign one accuracy figure to all Wisconsin. Source cells range from 3.3 ft per pixel in the finest work units to about 9.8 ft per pixel or 33 ft per pixel in coarser sources. Every download reports the share outside the finest lidar work units, or says coverage is unknown if the index cannot be reached. Bare-earth elevations exclude buildings and tree canopy and do not replace a surveyed elevation for legal or engineering decisions.

Do I need GIS software to use free elevation data?

To work with the raw files, yes — QGIS is free and capable. To get a result rather than a file, no. Wisconsin Elevation Tools reads the same public data and returns contours, slope, drainage, profiles and property reports in the browser.