Distance Between Coordinates

Calculate the great-circle distance between two GPS coordinates — the straight-line “as the crow flies” distance across the Earth’s surface. Enter latitude and longitude for two points.

What This Calculates

This tool uses the haversine formula to find the great-circle distance — the shortest path between two points over the surface of a sphere. It’s the “as the crow flies” distance, ignoring roads, terrain and obstacles.

It also reports the initial bearing: the compass direction (0° = North, 90° = East) you’d set off in to travel the great-circle route.

The Haversine Formula

Given two points with latitudes φ₁, φ₂ and longitude difference Δλ:

a = sin²(Δφ/2) + cos φ₁ · cos φ₂ · sin²(Δλ/2) distance = 2R · atan2(√a, √(1−a))

where R ≈ 6,371 km is the mean radius of the Earth. This is accurate to within about 0.5% — plenty for navigation and mapping.

Straight Line vs. Travel Distance

Great-circle distance is always shorter than the distance you’d actually drive or walk, because real routes bend around roads, coastlines and terrain. For the true travel distance along a path, measure it with the distance calculator or plan the full route with the route planner.

Need to enter coordinates in degrees/minutes/seconds? Convert them first with the coordinates converter.

Get Distance Tool

Download Distance Tool for iOS and start measuring in seconds.