Select tiles on the map, then download DSM or DTM data as GeoTIFF
Select 1°×1° tiles and download open global elevation data. Nine free DEMs are available under Dataset Options - pick a Type (DSM: surface, includes canopy/buildings; or DTM: bare-earth terrain) and then a Source. Coverage differs by mission, so the red boundary lines on the map move when you switch products. Six products are individually tiled GeoTIFF; Mapzen is raw gzip-compressed .hgt; ANADEM/GEDTM30 (the two DTM sources) are single large mosaics, but selecting an area and downloading still needs no account and no API key - your browser reads just that area directly from the source file (see Data Access below).
| Product | Type | Res | Extent |
|---|---|---|---|
| SRTM GL1 | DSM | ~30 m | 56°S - 60°N |
| NASADEM | DSM | ~30 m | 56°S - 60°N |
| ALOS AW3D30 | DSM | ~30 m | 82°S - 82°N |
| Copernicus GLO-30 | DSM | ~30 m | global |
| Mapzen (Tilezen) | DSM | ~30 m | 56°S - 60°N* |
| ANADEM (ML) | DTM | ~30 m | South America |
| GEDTM30 (ML) | DTM | ~30 m | global† |
| SRTM GL3 | DSM | ~90 m | 56°S - 60°N |
| Copernicus GLO-90 | DSM | ~90 m | global |
*Mapzen's own data is truly global (it fills the poles and oceans with ETOPO1/GMTED), but this portal caps it to the SRTM band so it only ever offers tiles already on the land-mask grid above.
†GEDTM30 fills gaps other DEMs miss (Central Africa, SE Asia, boreal forest) but is still an ensemble product, not a verified survey - check residuals near steep terrain.
SRTM / NASADEM - NASA/USGS radar (2000).
ALOS AW3D30 - JAXA optical stereo (2006-2011).
Copernicus GLO-30/90 - ESA's open DEM edited from Airbus TanDEM-X radar (2011-2015); the freely redistributable TanDEM-X-based global DEM.
Mapzen (Tilezen) - SRTM-derived "skadi" tiles from the defunct Mapzen project, redistributed as a static AWS Open Data snapshot; not updated since 2016.
ANADEM - machine-learning bare-earth model for South America, trained on Copernicus GLO-30, GEDI lidar and Landsat-8/Sentinel-2 spectral indices (DOI).
GEDTM30 - global ensemble ML terrain model trained on ~30 billion GEDI/ICESat-2 lidar points plus Copernicus GLO-30 and ALOS AW3D30 (DOI). Both released 2025 - see the
OpenTopography announcement.
Tiles are named by their lower-left corner. N37W122 = lat 37-38°N, lon 122-121°W. Each tile covers exactly 1°×1°. Filenames on disk follow each dataset's own convention.
The grid is drawn only over cells that actually have a DEM tile, so open ocean stays blank and can't be selected. Red dashed lines mark the selected product's latitude limit; global products (Copernicus, GEDTM30) show none. ANADEM is also longitude-restricted to South America - cells outside it (e.g. Africa, at the same latitudes) simply have no grid.
Six tiled products download straight from the OpenTopography
public mirror as GeoTIFF - no account, no login.
Mapzen instead comes from the
AWS Open Data terrain-tiles
bucket as gzip-compressed SRTM .hgt.gz - gunzip it to get a standard .hgt raster
that GDAL/QGIS open natively; it is not a GeoTIFF.
ANADEM and GEDTM30 are each a single Cloud-Optimized GeoTIFF covering
their whole area (66 GB and 403 GB) rather than 1° tiles. "Download DEM Files" still needs no account and
no API key here either - it opens the file with geotiff.js
and reads only the pixels covering your selection via HTTP range requests, straight from the mirror, in your
browser. The Merged GeoTIFF tab remains available as a server-side alternative (needs a free
API key) for very large selections.
NASA's own Earthdata distribution serves the same
SRTM/NASADEM data but requires a login and blocks browser requests, so it cannot be used directly from a web page.
SRTM: NASA JPL (2013), doi:10.5067/MEaSUREs/SRTM/SRTMGL1.003. ALOS AW3D30: © JAXA. Copernicus DEM: © ESA / Airbus, produced from TanDEM-X. Mapzen (Tilezen): © Mapzen, © OpenStreetMap contributors (terrain tiles use SRTM data under the same terms). ANADEM: doi:10.5069/G9736P4G. GEDTM30: doi:10.5069/G9BV7DT1. Eight products redistributed by OpenTopography; Mapzen via the AWS Open Data Program.
Built by Sharad Gupta.
GitHub: @sharadgupta27
LinkedIn: in/sharadgupta27
Email: sharadgupta27@gmail.com
Inspired by geocarpentry.org.
Dataset Options now separates Type (DSM - surface, includes canopy/buildings; or DTM - bare-earth terrain) from Source, instead of mixing all nine products into one dropdown. Pick a type first and the Source list filters to match - ANADEM and GEDTM30 are the two DTM sources today, the rest are DSM.
Reliability fixes: the plain OpenStreetMap base layer was being rejected by
tile.openstreetmap.org's tile usage policy, so it's now served from CARTO's Voyager basemap
instead (relabelled "Light (Voyager)"). Fixed a bug where the download modal's title always read
"Download SRTM Tiles" regardless of the active product. Fixed a bug in the ANADEM/GEDTM30 in-browser clip
pipeline where geotiff.js's writer rejected the raster data with a
"width of type undefined" error - it now correctly unwraps the single elevation band before packaging
the output GeoTIFF.
Added ANADEM (South America) and GEDTM30 (near-global) - OpenTopography's new machine-learning-derived terrain models. Both are single large mosaics (66 GB / 403 GB) rather than 1° tiles, but "Download DEM Files" still needs no account and no API key: it opens the source file with geotiff.js and reads only your selected area via HTTP range requests, entirely in the browser. The Merged GeoTIFF tab (OpenTopography's own clip API, free key required) remains available as a faster alternative for very large selections. Product coverage can also now be longitude-restricted (previously latitude-band only), which ANADEM uses to limit itself to South America.
Mapzen added as a new DEM product.
SRTM GL1/GL3, NASADEM, ALOS AW3D30 and Copernicus GLO-30/GLO-90 as GeoTIFF - map click/box/polygon selection, ZIP/wget/Python downloads, country search, GeoJSON boundary upload, and tile selection.
download_srtm.sh · no credentials needed · run: bash download_srtm.shrequests - no authentication · pip install requests