Skip to content
ENExplore Calculators

Latitude Longitude Distance Calculator

Calculate the distance between two latitude and longitude pairs.

About Latitude Longitude Distance Calculator

A degree of latitude is about 111 km everywhere, but a degree of longitude shrinks with the cosine of latitude, reaching zero at the poles. The formula accounts for this, which naive coordinate subtraction does not. Treating degrees as a uniform grid overstates east-west distances by more than half at sixty degrees latitude.

Formula

Latitude Longitude Distance

Distance = 6,371 km × central angle derived from the two coordinate pairs

latitude
Degrees north or south of the equator
longitude
Degrees east or west of the prime meridian

Worked example

With the default values below, Latitude Longitude Distance Calculator returns Distance of 5,570.222. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

First latitudeaccepts -90–90 degrees
51.5074 degrees
First longitudeaccepts -180–180 degrees
-0.1278 degrees
Second latitudeaccepts -90–90 degrees
40.7128 degrees
Second longitudeaccepts -180–180 degrees
-74.006 degrees

Results

Distance
5,570.222 km
Distance
3,461.175 miles
Distance
3,007.681 nmi
Initial Bearing
288.33 degrees
Flight Time at 900 km/h
6.189 h

Step by step

  1. 1Values used
  2. 2Latitude Longitude Distance
  3. 3Distance= 5,570.222 km
  4. 4Distance= 3,461.175 miles
  5. 5Distance= 3,007.681 nmi
  6. 6Initial Bearing= 288.33 degrees
  7. 7Flight Time at 900 km/h= 6.189 h

Assumptions and limits

  • The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
  • In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
  • Figures are rounded for display to 3 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is Latitude Longitude Distance calculated?

Distance = 6,371 km × central angle derived from the two coordinate pairs A degree of latitude is about 111 km everywhere, but a degree of longitude shrinks with the cosine of latitude, reaching zero at the poles. The formula accounts for this, which naive coordinate subtraction does not.

Why does Latitude Longitude Distance matter?

Treating degrees as a uniform grid overstates east-west distances by more than half at sixty degrees latitude.

What values do I need to enter?

This calculator takes 4 inputs: First latitude, First longitude, Second latitude, Second longitude. The pre-filled defaults are a realistic starting point — replace them with figures from your own environment for a result you can act on.

Related Calculators

Latitude Longitude Distance Calculator | Calcrivo