page_title: Leadville, Colorado
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Leadville, Colorado / Geography
caption_attribution_description: English: Mountain Goat on Mount Massive, Colorado, USA
context_page_description: Leadville is the statutory city that is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Lake County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 2,602 at the 2010 census and an estimated 2,762 in 2018. Leadville is situated at an elevation of 10,152 feet.
  A former silver mining town that lies among the headwaters of the Arkansas River in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the Leadville Historic District contains many historic structures and sites in its dynamic mining era. In the late 19th century, Leadville was the second most populous city in Colorado, after Denver. Leadville is notable for having many 14,000 foot peaks viewable from town.
context_section_description: At an elevation of 10,152 feet (3,094 m), Leadville lies close to timberline, which in Colorado is from 11,000 to 12,000 feet (3,400 to 3,700 m). The surrounding peaks are all well above 12,000 feet, and are thus bare of trees.  Leadville has the highest elevation of any city in the United States. 
  Leadville lies in a valley at the headwaters of the Arkansas River which flows through the southern Rocky Mountains and eventually empties into the Mississippi River. It is situated between two mountain ranges, the Mosquito Range to the east and the Sawatch Range to the west, both of which include several nearby peaks with elevations above 14,000 feet (4,300 m), the so-called fourteeners. Mount Elbert, 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Leadville, is the highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and the highest point in the Colorado and the entire Mississippi River drainage basin. An ultra-prominent 14,440-foot (4,401 m) fourteener, Mount Elbert is the highest summit of the Sawatch Range and the second-highest summit in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney in California. Mount Massive, 10.6 mi (17.1 km) west-southwest of Leadville, at 14,428 ft (4,398 m) is the second highest summit in the Rocky Mountains and state of Colorado, and the third highest in the contiguous United States.
  Turquoise Lake lies on the western outskirts of Leadville. The surface available for recreation includes 780 acres (320 ha). Turquoise Lake is a feature of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. Recreation is managed by the Forest Service for the Bureau of Reclamation as part of San Isabel National Forest.
  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city of Leadville has an area of 1.1 square miles (2.9 km²), all of it recorded as land. The lower part of California Gulch runs past the southern edge of the city, flowing west 3 miles (5 km) to the Arkansas River.
caption: Mountain Goat, Mount Massive ~ 2009
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