Distance between two places
Pick two cities, or click anywhere on the map, to see how far apart they are as the crow flies, which way to head, and roughly how long the flight takes.
Or click the map to drop a point, and drag the pins to move them.
How the distance is measured
The distance shown is the great-circle distance: the shortest path between two points along the surface of the Earth, often called the distance "as the crow flies". It is worked out with the haversine formula, treating the Earth as a sphere with a radius of 6,371 km. That is accurate to within about half a percent anywhere on the planet.
It is not the driving distance. Roads bend around mountains, lakes and borders, so a road trip is almost always noticeably longer than the straight line.
Why the shortest route looks curved
On the map the red line bends towards the pole, while the dashed blue line runs straight. The red one is shorter. A flat map cannot show the curved surface of the Earth without distortion, and on the Mercator map used here the shortest route between two distant places always appears as a curve.
The dashed line is a rhumb line: a route that keeps the same compass heading the whole way. It looks straight on this map but is longer, sometimes by hundreds of kilometres. This is why long-haul flights from Europe to North America pass over Greenland, and why the shortest route from London to New York sets off heading west-northwest even though New York lies further south.
Distances between famous cities
Straight-line distances and the compass bearing you would set off on, all calculated with the same formula as the tool above.
| Route | Kilometres | Miles | Set off heading |
|---|---|---|---|
| London to New York | 5,570 | 3,461 | 288° (WNW) |
| Paris to Tokyo | 9,712 | 6,035 | 33° (NNE) |
| London to Sydney | 16,994 | 10,560 | 61° (ENE) |
| New York to Los Angeles | 3,936 | 2,446 | 274° (W) |
| Madrid to Buenos Aires | 10,045 | 6,242 | 222° (SW) |
| Cairo to Cape Town | 7,239 | 4,498 | 192° (SSW) |
| Dubai to Singapore | 5,837 | 3,627 | 109° (ESE) |
| Berlin to Rome | 1,183 | 735 | 184° (S) |
| Amsterdam to Copenhagen | 621 | 386 | 51° (NE) |
Kilometres, miles and nautical miles
One mile is exactly 1.609344 km. One nautical mile, the unit used at sea and in the air, is exactly 1.852 km, and was originally defined as one minute of latitude. That is why pilots and sailors use it: 60 nautical miles is almost exactly one degree of latitude.
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Questions about distances
How is the distance between two cities calculated?
This tool uses the haversine formula, which gives the shortest distance between two points on a sphere from their latitude and longitude. With the Earth's mean radius of 6,371 km it is accurate to within about 0.5%.
What does "as the crow flies" mean?
It means the straight-line distance between two places, ignoring roads, terrain and borders. On a globe that straight line is a great circle, which is what this tool measures.
Why do flight routes look curved on a map?
Because the shortest path over a round Earth, the great circle, looks curved once it is drawn on a flat map. Planes follow it because it saves fuel and time. The straight line on a Mercator map is a constant compass heading, which is longer.
How long is a flight between two cities?
The tool gives a rough estimate: the distance at a typical airliner cruising speed of about 800 km/h, plus half an hour for take-off and landing. Real flight times vary with winds, routes and the aircraft.
What is the longest possible distance between two places on Earth?
About 20,000 km, half the Earth's circumference. That is the distance between any point and its antipode, the point exactly on the opposite side of the planet.