County Maps US

Tools Distance, area and drive time

Drive Time Map

An isochrone is the shape of everywhere you can reach within a time limit. Pick a start point, a travel mode and a number of minutes, and the reachable area is drawn on the map.

How to use it

  1. Type a start address or city, use your location, or click the map.
  2. Choose car, bicycle or on foot.
  3. Pick up to four times, from 10 to 120 minutes.
  4. Press Draw. Each contour is drawn in its own colour with its area listed below the map.
  5. Copy the page link to share the map, or download the shapes as GeoJSON.

How it works

The reachable area is computed by the public Valhalla routing server run by FOSSGIS (valhalla1.openstreetmap.de) on OpenStreetMap road data. It uses typical speed limits and turn costs for the chosen mode, with no live traffic, so a 30 minute contour is a fair-weather, off-peak estimate.

That server is free and shared, so a request can take 5 to 20 seconds and occasionally fails; the tool says so and you can try again. The area shown for each contour is the spherical area of its outer boundary, computed in the browser.

Questions

How far can you drive in 30 minutes?
On open highway about 25 to 35 miles; in a city often 8 to 15 miles. The contour on the map is the honest answer for one specific start point, because it follows the actual roads and their speed limits rather than a fixed radius.
Does the drive time map include traffic?
No. Times come from road classes and speed limits in OpenStreetMap, so rush hour will be slower than the contour suggests.
Why does the walking area look small and jagged?
At 3 mph a 30 minute walk reaches about 1.5 miles along paths, and the contour follows footways and street crossings, so it hugs the road network rather than forming a smooth circle.
Can I download the isochrone?
Yes. GeoJSON export gives one polygon per contour with the minutes and mode as properties, ready for QGIS, Google Earth or a GIS database.

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.