How to use the distance calculator
- In From, choose a city from the list of about 280 world cities, or switch to latitude and longitude and type the coordinates in decimal degrees.
- Do the same for To.
- Read the result.
The result shows:
- the great-circle distance in kilometers, miles and nautical miles;
- the initial direction from the first place to the second, as a compass bearing;
- the halfway point, the spot on the great circle exactly midway between the two places;
- a rough flight time, for distances over 150 km;
- the time difference between the two places.
Below the result, a signpost table lists the distance and direction from your first place to about 60 major cities. The distance signpost page explains that table in more detail.
Great-circle distance
The shortest route between two points on a sphere follows a great circle, a circle whose center is the center of the Earth, such as the equator or any meridian. On a flat map, great-circle routes look curved. That is why flights from Europe to the western United States or Canada often pass over Greenland.
The calculator uses the haversine formula, a standard way to compute great-circle distances from latitude and longitude. It treats the Earth as a sphere with a mean radius of 6,371 km. Because the real Earth bulges slightly at the equator, the result can differ from the most precise ellipsoid calculations, but by less than 0.5 %, which is plenty for travel planning and curiosity.
Example distances
| From | To | Kilometers | Miles | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| London | Paris | about 344 | about 213 | South-south-east |
| London | New York | about 5,570 | about 3,461 | West-north-west |
| New York | Los Angeles | about 3,936 | about 2,446 | West |
| London | Tokyo | about 9,559 | about 5,939 | North-north-east |
| London | Sydney | about 16,994 | about 10,560 | East-north-east |
Distances are measured between city centers; airports and exact addresses add or remove a little. With the rule of 800 km/h plus 30 minutes, London to New York comes out at about 7.5 hours, within the usual range of 7 to 8 hours for scheduled flights.
Distance and time zones
Distance east or west does not translate neatly into time difference. Time zones follow borders, so China uses one time zone across about 5,000 km, while a short hop across a border can change the clock by an hour. That is why the result shows the time difference separately. For more, see the time difference calculator and the time zones guide. To see the time in each destination, open the world clock.