County Maps US

Tools Distance, area and drive time

Distance Between Cities

Search two cities and compare the direct distance with the driven one. The gap between them is the detour the road network forces on you.

How to use it

  1. Type the first city and pick it from the suggestions.
  2. Type the second city.
  3. Press Straight-line distance for the immediate answer, then Add driving distance for the road figure and time.
  4. Or press Use beside one of the well-known pairs under the map.

How it works

City search uses the Photon geocoder on OpenStreetMap data, steered toward city, town and village results; a city resolves to its centre point. The straight-line figure is the great-circle distance between the two centres on a sphere of radius 6,371 km, computed in the browser.

Driving distance and time come from the public Valhalla routing server on OpenStreetMap roads at posted speeds, without traffic or stops. The reference table of ten US city pairs is computed the same way from fixed centre coordinates when the page loads, so the numbers and the tool always agree.

Questions

What is the distance between New York and Los Angeles?
About 2,450 miles (3,940 km) in a straight line between the city centres, and roughly 2,790 miles by road on Interstate 80 or 40. Press Use in the table to see it on the map.
Why is the driving distance so much longer?
Roads bend around mountains, lakes and property lines and follow the interstate grid. In flat country the road adds 15 to 25 percent to the straight line; in mountains or along coasts it can add half again.
Does it work for cities outside the US?
Yes, worldwide, as long as OpenStreetMap knows the city. Driving distance needs a road connection, so it will not route across an ocean.

All map tools, free and without an account. Location data is processed in your browser and by the open geocoding services named on the sources page; nothing is stored by this site.