Tennessee county high points (original) (raw)

Tennessee county high points

★ clickable Google map

county elevation landmark

Source: cohp.org and special help from Andy Martin.
sorted by elevation or full list
Waypoints: <cohp.gpx> or <cohp.mxf>
send waypoints to Garmin GPS

The table locates the highest point from USGS DEM data for each of Tennessee's 95 counties ("digital high points"). The original data was based on descriptions from Andy Martin's book County High Points (10,500+ highpoint contours in 3,140 counties of the 50 states) andcohp.org. Andy's "analog" data, based on visual inspection of the contour lines of the 7.5 minute USGS topo quadrangles, often has multiple high points for a single county. 53 of the 95 counties had multiple (261) high point candidates. (See table with all candidates.)

In the table, click on the county name to view the Google map and get a list of maps for that point. At the bottom of the table are waypoint files for uploading to your GPS. Latitude and longitude are in the WGS84 datum and extrapolated from USGS 7.5' topo maps or provided by the DEM data.

digitial elevation data discussion ...
White county has 26 possible high points based on contours of the DeRossett quadrangle.

Andy writes:

White spot elevation 2 miles east of DeRossett 2,009 DeRossett 16 areas within 2 miles of 2009 spot elevation 2,000+ DeRossett 9 areas within 1 1/4 miles of Stringtown 2,000+ DeRossett

We have used 10m USGS/NASA digital elevation data (quad/UTM DEMsor better seamless server) to resolve the multi high point counties. For White county, the 10m DEM shows the high point (35.87875 -85.31523) at 2010'. (See Google map with DEM grid over candidates -- zoom out to see all areas.) Another candidate, was the contour with the 2009' spot elevation, but the DEM data reported only 2005.9 for the high point in that contour. In 2016, TN did additional LiDAR elevation surveys that included White county. From the TN LiDAR DEM data, the digital high point for White county is 2017.2' at 35.878792,-85.315431. The next closest contour is at 2013.2' at 35.886713,-85.303809.

As another example, see the10m DEM grid over the two candidate areas forSullivan county. The Rutherford county high pointsillustrate points on the county line -- digital high point 1366.8' near Brown Cemetery. Or is that in the adjacent county, how accurate is the line on the topo map? The 10m DEM high point might actually be 1366.7' near Harrold Cemetery. From the 2004 LiDAR survey of Rutherford county, the high point is 1366' at Harrold Cemetery 35.71839,-86.23124. The 10m DEM data revealed a high point (35.21757 -89.7475) for Shelby county that was not on Andy's list -- and at 432'. Tom Owen reports this is a man-made (overpass), so we have not listed it as the high point. On the other hand, we did find some bad DEM (or topo?) data in the Dyersburg quad inDyer county, TN. Topo map has a couple of 500 and 510 contours and one 515 spot elevation. The max elevation from the 10m DEM for the quad is only 476' (at the 515 spot elevation). Seevisual evidence. The 2016 DEM data from seamless server has the spot elevation at 509.4' at 36.071538,-89.494581, and further north 512.3' at 36.104059,-89.491718 Looking at the satellite image, it's possible the high point has been bull-dozed down. TN LiDar (2012) has Dyer county high point at 36.143024,-89.382625 (516.6'), the former Millsfield fire tower site.

Henry and Lake county had no quad-based 10m DEM data for the areas of interest, but USGS seamless server had 3m DEM data for both Henry and Lake county. (Example: Lake County, view the map, and see the new HP is the southwest cluster of red +'s. If you zoom in and switch to satellite view, you'll see they probably built a hill for the water tank!) This 3m data is based on LiDAR (see bullet list below), but LiDAR elevation data for TN is presently only available for a few areas: Anderson county, Rutherford county (2004), Hamilton County, Davidson County,City of Franklin,Smoky Mountain, along the Mississippi and the NC boundary (see map or enable the "Elevation Availability" layer in thenational map viewer). TN GIS in 2011 developed a LiDARbusiness plan and technical specs for conducting TN LiDAR survey (12.5 cm veritcal RMSE at 1m spacing) at $10.4 million (2014-2018). From recent LiDAR data, strip mining has eliminated Burge Mountain as the Scott County digital high point, being replaced by Guinea Hill Knob.

Thunderhead Mountain,Blount County high point, has a USGS benchmark disk that reports elevation of 5527' (no USGS datasheet?). The USGS DEM data lists the Thunderhead high point as 5533.7' at 35.56862,-83.70622. The recent NC LiDAR survey reports high point of 5524.75' at 35.56862,-83.70622 (bare earth).

SRTM data (30m) is also available fromearthexplorer.usgs.govand is more recent (2000), but is based on "first-return" data and may have inaccuracies. (Example: cohp'ers visiting Bryson Mtn (Claiborne county) noted that summit (3200') had been reduced by stripmining. Neither the 30m or 10m DEM data revealed this, but the SRTM data did (3117'), see mapor use the track elevation profile on the cohp google map.) I am now using the seamless server for the source of elevation data. Also Google Earth seems to have fairly accurate elevation data (10m DEM or 30m SRTM?), and we have a coarse (30m SRTM) elevation profile tool on our Google high points mapalong with 10m (and in some cases 3m LiDAR) spot elevations.

The highest point in TN isClingmans Dome at 6,643', and the lowest pointis 188' along the Mississippi. (Elevation profile from Memphis to Clingman's Dome.) The Tennessee county high points have one "twofer", a single high point that serves two counties: Marion and Sequatchie at Lockhart. Anderson and Campbell county mostly share a high point, though the Cross Mountain benchmark (high point) is in Campbell county. The 2015 TN LiDAR elevation survey has Cross Mountain high point (3534.2') at 36.198266,-84.230993. Here is a nice article from the Tennessee Conservationist magazine on Tennessee's high points (1999).

Sevier county has the maximum elevation differential -- Clingmans Dome (6643') to the French Broad River (839'). Lake County has least relief (82'). The following table lists the relief for a few counties. The low points have not been located with the greatest rigor. County low points usually occur at a river or creek drainage on the county border. Rhea County low point is in a quarry at 35.538287,-84.898657. You can view the low point by pasting the lat,lon into the Find box of the Google map.

County highs and lows

County High Low relief low @
Anderson 3529' 759' 2770' 36.023053,-84.333294
Davidson 1160' 385' 775' 36.209993,-86.985376
Hamilton 2153' 634' 1519' 35.120353,-85.391910
Knox 2091' 795' 1296' 35.897173,-84.264052
Lake 325' 243' 82' 36.185381,-89.629308
Madison 664' 304' 360' 35.688542,-89.069661
Montgomery 812' 352' 460' 36.418739,-87.602203
Putnam 2060' 505' 1555' 36.248223,-85.776826
Rutherford 1366' 490' 876' 36.068296,-86.561677
Sevier 6643' 839' 5804' 35.944067,-83.694747
Shelby 432' 188' 244' 34.996043,-90.305450
Sullivan 4309' 1151' 3158' 36.526282,-82.613369

For reference, here are Andy's original TN county high pointareas, courtesy of Tom Owen, and on Google map(includes new additions in Shelby and Lake County), and <tnahps.gpx> and <tnahps.kmz>. Andy has a demo Google map for variousUS county high points, includes gpx and kml data and link to trip reports, derived from Adam's cohp.org, another version of US county high points google map, or leafletjs version. Also, see US county high points ESRI map (too big for my free account), or US ArcGIS map

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visits since 12/10/04 Tom Dunigan -- revised Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:13:51 -0700