Distance Calculator

What Is a Distance Calculator?

A distance calculator determines the distance between two points. This Distance Calculator uses the latitude and longitude coordinates of two geographic locations to calculate the shortest distance between them across the Earth's surface.

The tool is useful for checking approximate distances between cities, locations, geographic coordinates and other points on Earth. It provides the result in kilometres, metres, miles and feet, allowing you to work with either metric or imperial measurements.

Why Use the Distance Calculator?

Calculating the distance between geographic coordinates manually can involve trigonometric calculations. This tool performs the calculation automatically and presents the result in several commonly used units.

How to Use the Distance Calculator

Follow these steps to calculate the distance between two geographic coordinates.

1. Enter Point 1 coordinates — Enter the latitude and longitude of the first location.
2. Enter Point 2 coordinates — Enter the latitude and longitude of the second location.
3. Check the coordinate ranges — Latitude must be between -90 and 90 degrees and longitude must be between -180 and 180 degrees.
4. Calculate the distance — Select Calculate Distance to display the result in kilometres, metres, miles and feet.

Calculate Distance Between Two Points

The distance between two geographic points can be calculated from their latitude and longitude coordinates. Latitude identifies a position north or south of the Equator, while longitude identifies a position east or west of the Prime Meridian. Together, these coordinates provide a geographic position on Earth.

This calculator uses the Haversine formula to determine the great-circle distance between the two points. The calculation accounts for the Earth's curved surface rather than treating the coordinates as points on a flat two-dimensional plane.

What Is the Haversine Formula?

The Haversine formula is commonly used to calculate the great-circle distance between two points on a sphere when their latitude and longitude are known. It uses the angular difference between the two locations and an assumed Earth radius to calculate the surface distance.

Latitude and Longitude Coordinates

Latitude ranges from -90 degrees at the South Pole to 90 degrees at the North Pole. Longitude ranges from -180 degrees westward or eastward around the globe. Positive and negative decimal values can therefore be used to represent locations in different hemispheres.

Understanding Distance Results

The result produced by this calculator represents the great-circle distance between the two supplied coordinates. It is the shortest surface distance between the points when the Earth is approximated as a sphere.

This result should not be confused with road distance, driving distance, walking distance or travel distance. A real journey may be longer because roads, terrain, borders, waterways and available routes can prevent travel along the direct path between two locations.

The calculator uses an Earth radius of approximately 6,371 kilometres for its calculation. As the Earth is not a perfect sphere, the result is an approximation of geographic surface distance rather than a survey-grade geodetic measurement.

Frequently Asked Questions