The Distance Signpost shows the air distance, also known as the great circle distance, between a location and cities around it.
Jump to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
While it is not possible to pick and choose every single location displayed in the Distance Signpost, it is possible to change the scale of the graph, showing either cities close by or far away. You can change the scale by using the zoom buttons or the slider that appears at the bottom of the graph when you hover over it.
If you believe that the calculator shows the wrong distance, please consider the following before sending us your error report:
If you still think the calculator shows the wrong distance, please let us know.
The distance unit can be changed under Distance/Visibility in the Settings Menu.
The Distance Signpost shows the great circle or air distance between any two locations, which is the shortest distance as measured by drawing a path along the Earth's surface. Because the Earth is a sphere, it is not possible to show its surface on a map without distorting it.
This means that a straight line along the Earth's curved surface in most cases appears as a curved line on a map—and that the heading of the shortest route normally does not match the heading of a straight line on a 2-dimensional map.
Planes often do not follow the shortest route between two locations. Reasons can include weather conditions, security considerations, or available infrastructure.
What's more, the calculator shows distances at sea level. Since planes fly at a considerable altitude, they have to travel a longer distance to get from point A to point B. For example, the distance increases by about 0.2% for a plane flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, even if it follows the shortest possible route.
This service includes all 5000+ locations in our database. Some of our services also include millions of additional locations provided by the GeoNames database. However, these GeoNames locations cannot be selected in this service yet.
No. It shows the air distance between the location you pick and other locations worldwide.
The air or great circle distance is the shortest distance between any two locations on Earth as measured by drawing a path along the Earth's surface at sea level.
The lists on the right side show locations that approximately share the same latitude or longitude as the selected location. Latitudes and longitudes are explained here.
The list on the right side shows the locations that are farthest away from the selected location. In other words, you would roughly end up there if you dug from the selected location straight down and through the Earth's core.
They are explained here.
They show the direction you would have to travel in to get from the selected location to the location shown in the table row.
The headings are stated in degrees, with 360 in a full circle, counted in a clockwise direction from north. As shown on a compass, north is 0 degrees, east is 90 degrees, south is 180 degrees, and west is 270 degrees. All headings are based on true north.
All headings are based on true north.
No. They provide an indication of the signpost's scale, which can be changed by using the zoom buttons or the slider that appears at the bottom of the graph when you hover over it. The red number in the bottom-right corner indicates the distance represented by the spacing between the circles.
Depends. If you started your journey by traveling into the direction displayed in the graph and then kept going straight, you would reach the location. However, if you looked at your compass during your journey and followed the same heading consistently, you would not reach you destination, especially if it's far away.
The reason is Earth's curvature. Because the Earth is a sphere, the compass heading changes underway. For example, if the shortest route between two locations goes via the North Pole, the initial heading is north, but as you cross the pole, it changes by 180° from north to south. If you simply kept going north, you'd be stuck at the North Pole.
We are a small team with very extensive websites to manage, so, unfortunately, we do not have the capacity to share detailed information about our algorithms or provide programming help.
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