Calculate the distance between two latitude and longitude 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. Treating degrees as a uniform grid overstates east-west distances by more than half at sixty degrees latitude.
Latitude Longitude Distance
Distance = 6,371 km × central angle derived from the two coordinate pairs
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.
Treating degrees as a uniform grid overstates east-west distances by more than half at sixty degrees latitude.
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.