This page contains three lists -

• Mean elevations of the highest mean elevation county in each state.

• Mean elevations of the highest mean elevation counties in the United States,
  the cutoff value being 7,000 feet. Fifty-nine counties make this list,
  one dominated by Colorado counties. Indeed, the top twenty-one counties
  are located in Colorado.

• Mean elevations of the highest mean elevation counties in the eastern USA,
  the cutoff value being 2,000 feet. Sixty counties make this list,
  with West Virginia having the largest contribution by area of included counties
  and as a fraction of total state area.

The columns labeled "Ratio" list the ratios of the mean county elevations
divided by the (simple) average of the highest and lowest county elevations,
i.e. ratio = mean / [(low + high)/2].

A uniform county elevation distribution yields 1.0 for this ratio. Ratios less than 1.0
correspond to large tracts of lowland with small sections of high terrain.
Ratios greater than 1.0 correspond to large highland areas with smaller lowland sections.

Carl Mills contributed these lists. He adds the following comments regarding
elevation distributions for the highest Colorado counties.

The elevation frequency histogram for the highest counties is revealing.
For San Juan County the distribution peaks on the high side, with a mode about 12,100 feet.
There is no place for any major flat water to collect in the entire county.

Hinsdale County has a flat histogram in the range 10,000-12,000 feet, with a mode about 10,600 feet.

Lake County is like most counties with major river drainage, in the Arkansas valley. It has a mode in the low end, where flat water can collect. That is the Twin Lakes Reservoir at about 9,000 feet, where snowmelt water from aqueducts through the mountains gathers after being diverted from the Colorado River drainage.

The histograms afford estimates of what percentage of each total county land area is in the five-digit range. San Juan County is definitely first, with about 87% of its area above 10,000 feet. Hinsdale County follows at about 78%, Lake County is about 3/4, and Mineral County is about 2/3. Those numbers drop rapidly, so that the tenth highest mean elevation in the country, Park County in Colorado, has about 29% above 10,000 feet.

Highest Mean Elevation Counties for each State

State	County	Mean	Ratio
****	******	*****	*****
CO	San Juan	11240	1.028
NM	Taos	8510	0.896
UT	Summit	8388	0.903
WY	Teton	8053	0.831
CA	Mono	7750	0.844
ID	Custer	7554	0.888
MT	Beaverhead	7026	0.886
NV	White Pine	6791	0.765
AZ	Apache	6492	0.814
OR	Lake	5087	0.820
SD	Lawrence	4982	0.986
TX	Jeff Davis	4901	0.869
NE	Kimball	4885	1.000
OK	Cimarron	4116	0.962
WA	Chelan	3929	0.787
HI	Hawaii	3905	0.568
AK	Valdez-Cordova	3654	0.443 (see a)
KS	Greeley	3643	0.998
NC	Haywood	3597	0.912
WV	Pocahontas	3219	0.938
VA	Grayson	2984	0.762
TN	Johnson	2927	0.827
ND	Bowman	2894	0.957
GA	Towns	2548	0.830
MD	Garrett	2454	1.125 (see a)
PA	Somerset	2193	1.004
KY	Harlan	2115	0.821
NY	Hamilton	2008	0.872
NH	Coos	1882	0.547
VT	Bennington	1703	0.802
MN	Pipestone	1702	0.997
AR	Madison	1658	0.918
WI	Vilas	1643	0.946
MI	Iron	1561	1.020
ME	Franklin	1553	0.696
IA	Osceola	1517	0.990
MO	Webster	1412	1.002
MA	Berkshire	1395	0.693
AL	DeKalb	1219	0.948
OH	Richland	1189	0.967
SC	Pickens	1117	0.536
IN	Randolph	1075	0.986
CT	Litchfield	949	0.768
IL	McHenry	872	0.914
NJ	Sussex	800	0.795
MS	Tishomingo	531	0.956
RI	Providence	353	0.847
LA	Claiborne	253	0.850
FL	Gadsden	208	1.079
DE	New Castle	92	0.421 (see a)

a. Compare steep gorges and massifs of counties with values greater than 1.1
    to abundant shores and valleys of counties with values less than 0.5.