Distance Calculator
Measure the straight-line distance between towns, coordinates or UK postcodes, with stops along the way if you need them, in miles, kilometres and nautical miles.
About this tool
Type a town or city, coordinates in any format, or a UK postcode into each box; the line underneath shows how it was read. Add stops to measure a route with several legs. The distance is “as the crow flies”: the shortest path over the Earth’s surface, which is what pilots, sailors and radio planners use. Road and rail routes are longer, typically by 20 to 40 per cent, because they have to follow the ground.
Distances are worked out on the WGS84 ellipsoid used by GPS, with Charles Karney’s geodesic method, accurate to a fraction of a millimetre. Many simple calculators treat the Earth as a perfect sphere, which can be out by up to about 0.5 per cent; the note shows the difference for your route. UK postcodes are placed at the centre of their postcode sector, typically within a few hundred metres. Place names and postcodes are looked up from lists built into the page, so nothing you type is sent anywhere.