📏 Distance Calculator

How far is it, really? Ask two questions and get both numbers: the straight line through the globe — the shortest path a bird, a radio wave or an antipode map would take — and the honest road distance a vehicle must actually cover. Type two place names and press Measure.

Why the straight line is a curve

The Earth is a ball, so the shortest path between two places is not a ruler line but a great circle — an arc hugging the largest circle you can draw around the globe. Long-haul flights bow toward the poles for exactly this reason, and the number here uses the haversine formula from spherical trigonometry with the Earth’s mean radius of 6,371 km (one full turn around the planet ≈ 40,075 km). A handy scale: 1° of latitude ≈ 111 km, and 1 minute of latitude ≈ 1.85 km — the nautical mile, born from the globe itself.

Reading the detour factor

Roads bend around mountains, coastlines and borders, so the driving number is always at least the straight one. The ratio is the interesting part: ~1.0–1.2 means an easy land corridor, 1.5+ means the terrain is arguing with the ruler, and “no route” is honest geography — islands have ferries, and you cannot drive from Malaysian Borneo to the Peninsula without one. Free-flow times ignore traffic; for today’s road reality see Tukuk Traffic. Related reading: latitude & longitude explained and places you cannot drive to — and for the road itself, Maps & Navigation.

Places resolved by Nominatim (cached on our server); roads by OSRM on OpenStreetMap data; the straight line is pure arithmetic and never touches a third party.