Great-circle distance between cities worldwide
The Distance Calculator finds the great-circle (straight-line) distance between any two cities in the world using their precise latitude and longitude coordinates. Results are shown in kilometres and miles. With hundreds of major cities across every continent available, it's the fastest way to find how far apart two places are as the crow flies.
Estimates based on great-circle distance at typical speeds. Actual travel times vary.
Great-circle distance is the shortest possible path between two points on the surface of a sphere (the Earth). It's the straight-line distance "as the crow flies", which is shorter than the actual road or flight distance, which must follow routes and avoid obstacles.
The calculator uses the Haversine formula with precise latitude/longitude coordinates for each city, giving results accurate to within a few kilometres. It assumes the Earth is a sphere (radius 6,371 km), which introduces a maximum error of about 0.5%.
No — it shows the straight-line (as the crow flies) distance. Driving or travel distance will always be longer due to roads, terrain, and borders. For driving distances use a mapping service like Google Maps.
Select the capital city (or largest city) of each country from the dropdowns. The result gives a good approximation of the distance between the two countries' main population centres.
Results are displayed simultaneously in kilometres (km) and miles (mi). The kilometre figure is the primary calculation; miles are derived by multiplying by 0.621371.
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