Outdoors & maps
Great-circle distance & bearing
Compare two coordinates using a spherical Earth model.
A clear answer. Here’s how.
Uses the haversine formula and a 6,371 km sphere for surface distance. Also reports miles, nautical miles, the initial true-north bearing and the great-circle midpoint. Bearings or midpoints can be undefined for coincident, polar or antipodal geometry. This is a spherical straight-across-the-surface calculation, without roads, elevation, terrain or ellipsoidal correction.
See a worked example
Worked example
A fixed demonstration, separate from the values you enter above.
- Point 1 latitude (degrees)
- 51.5074
- Point 1 longitude (degrees)
- -0.1278
- Point 2 latitude (degrees)
- 40.7128
- Point 2 longitude (degrees)
- -74.006
Example result
- Spherical surface distance (km)
- 5,570.22217974
- Miles
- 3,461.17559685
- Nautical miles
- 3,007.67936271
- Initial true bearing
- 288.329701594°
- Midpoint latitude
- 52.3684395875
- Midpoint longitude
- -41.2903073562