Lake · California

Salton Sea

-72 m-236 ft

Area: 812 km²
Max depth: 15 m
Tonight: 66°FPartly cloudy · Wind 5–15 mph NW

Salton Sea is a lake at -72 m above sea level in California, United States, 812 km² in area and 53.9 km long.

All facts

Surface elevation: -72 m
Length: 53.9 km
Shoreline: 156.2 km

Open the 3D view

3D map

Salton Sea 3D map

Drag to orbit · click, then scroll to zoom (or Ctrl/⌘ + scroll) · One finger scrolls the page · two fingers orbit and zoom · 20 × 20 km

Surface

Vertical scale

Topographic map

Salton Sea topographic map

10 m contours from the USGS 3DEP 10 m terrain model. Click two points on the map to draw your own cross-section.Tap two points on the map to draw your own cross-section.

Index contours every 50 mShowing west → east through the centre

Salton Sea elevation profile

West → east through the centre

Hover the profile to read elevation and distance.Tap or drag along the profile to read elevation and distance.

Downloads

Salton Sea downloads: topographic map, heightmap, STL 3D model and DEM

Free files made in your browser from this page's terrain data. No sign-up; credit the sources below.

Print & wall

JPGSalton Sea satellite image (JPEG)Sentinel-2 true-colour image of the same area, taken 2026-08-02.

3D printing & 3D apps

GIS & GPS

</>Embed this mapPaste this into your site to show the interactive 3D terrain, with a credit link back here.

<iframe src="https://topolu.com/embed/salton-sea" width="100%" height="480" style="border:0" loading="lazy" allowfullscreen title="3D terrain of Salton Sea"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://topolu.com/salton-sea" rel="nofollow">Topolu</a></p>

Free to use with credit: see the data sources

Lake

Salton Sea in numbers

Shoreline from OpenStreetMap.

Shoreline: 156.2 km

Weather

Salton Sea weather

Tonight · Partly cloudy · 66°F (19°C) · 6% chance of precipitation · Wind 5–15 mph NW

Salton Sea forecast for about -74 m.

Tonight66°6%5–15 mph NW
Sat66°82°1%5–15 mph WNW
Sun68°82°–0–10 mph E
Mon68°83°–0–10 mph W
Tue68°83°–0–5 mph SW
Wed67°82°–0–5 mph WSW
Thu67°80°3%0–5 mph WSW

Forecast data: NOAA National Weather Service, public domain, model run Oct 23, 22:56 UTC.

Slope

Share of the 20 × 20 km view by steepness, from the 10 m model.

Mostly gentle: 100% of the view is under 15°.

Gentle, 0–15°

99.9%

Moderate, 15–30°

0.1%

Steep, 30–45°

0.0%

Cliffs, 45° and over

0.0%

Steeper than 30°: 0.0% of the 400 km² view
Relief in view: 293 m low point -73 m

Land cover

ESA WorldCover 10 m classification of the same area.

Water 58.4%Bare rock / sparse 38.2%Shrubland 3.0%

Snow & ice means glaciers and year-round snow (a yearly average), not today’s snow cover.

Wildlife

Wildlife seen nearby

Sightings of the most-seen species on iNaturalist (research grade) within 10 km; 372 species recorded in all.

Sightings per species 6

Desert lily149
Mecca Woodyaster137
Desert Sunflower112
Salton Milkvetch84
Creosote Bush70
Devil's Spineflower64

Where it sits

Where Salton Sea sits

Nearby

Nearby places

More 1

El Capitan ReservoirLake109 km WSW

Sources

Data sources

Terrain: U.S. Geological Survey, 3D Elevation Program (public domain)
Imagery: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026 (scene 2026-08-02)
Land cover: © ESA WorldCover project 2021 / Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2021) processed by ESA WorldCover consortium
Facts: Wikidata (CC0)
Protected area: USGS Gap Analysis Project, PAD-US (public domain)
Wildlife: iNaturalist community observations, counts only
Panorama: Includes Copernicus WorldDEM-90 © DLR e.V. 2010-2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014-2018 provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA; all rights reserved. The European Union, ESA, DLR and Airbus incur no liability for any use of this data and do not endorse this service.
Forecast: Weather forecast from NOAA National Weather Service (public domain)
Sources: Official website · Wikidata · GeoNames · Wikipedia