World Distance Calculator & True Size Map

What is great-circle distance?

On a sphere, the shortest route between two places is an arc of a great circle — a circle whose center is the center of the Earth, like the equator or any meridian. Pilots and ships follow great circles to save fuel and time. Because a flat map has to unroll the globe, these routes look curved on paper even though they are the straightest possible path on the Earth itself. That is why a flight from Seoul to New York arcs north over the Russian Far East, Alaska and Canada instead of heading straight east across the Pacific.

This calculator uses the haversine formula on a sphere with the mean Earth radius (6,371 km). The result is within about 0.5% of the more precise ellipsoidal distance — plenty for travel planning and geography homework.

Why do flat maps distort size?

The familiar Mercator projection keeps angles and shapes correct locally, which made it ideal for navigation, but it stretches everything by a factor of 1/cos(latitude). At 60° north, lengths are doubled and areas are four times too big; near the poles the distortion becomes enormous. That is how Greenland (2.2 million km²) ends up looking as large as Africa (30.4 million km²), which is actually fourteen times bigger.

Switch to True size mode above and drag a country north or south: its outline is moved across the globe and re-projected, so you see exactly how big it would look at its new latitude.

Mercator vs Equal Earth: what's different?

Mercator (1569) is conformal: a small square on the globe stays a square on the map, and a line of constant compass bearing is a straight line — perfect for sailing, and the reason web maps still use it. The price is area: Greenland, Canada, Russia and Antarctica swell enormously, while Africa and South America look smaller than they are.

Equal Earth (Šavrič, Patterson and Jenny, 2018) is an equal-area projection: every country keeps its true size relative to every other, and the rounded outline hints at the globe's curvature. Shapes near the edges are slightly sheared instead. Open the Flat view above, switch between the two, or use Compare to slide between them side by side.

In September 2026 the UN General Assembly reportedly voted to recommend the Equal Earth projection, with 164 votes in favour, 6 abstentions and the United States voting against (Kyunghyang Shinmun report).

메르카토르 도법은 각도와 국지적인 모양을 그대로 지켜 항해에 유리하지만, 극지방으로 갈수록 면적을 크게 부풀립니다. 2018년에 발표된 이퀄 어스(Equal Earth) 도법은 모든 나라의 면적 비율을 실제와 같게 유지하는 대신 가장자리의 모양이 조금 기울어집니다. 위의 ‘평면’ 보기에서 두 도법을 바꿔 보거나 ‘비교’로 나란히 놓고 밀어 보세요. 2026년 9월 유엔 총회는 찬성 164, 기권 6, 미국 반대로 이퀄 어스 도법 사용을 권고하는 안을 채택했다고 보도되었습니다(경향신문).

How far is it around the world?

Around the equator the Earth measures about 40,075 km (24,901 miles); through the poles it is 40,008 km. The farthest any two points can be apart is half of that — roughly 20,000 km, the distance to your antipode. The percentage shown under each result tells you what share of a full lap around the planet your trip covers.

Popular distances

• Seoul → New York서울 → 뉴욕11,048 km
• Seoul → Los Angeles서울 → 로스앤젤레스9,593 km
• Seoul → London서울 → 런던8,858 km
• Seoul → Paris서울 → 파리8,967 km
• Seoul → Sydney서울 → 시드니8,333 km
• Seoul → Tokyo서울 → 도쿄1,156 km
• Seoul → Bangkok서울 → 방콕3,723 km
• Seoul → Honolulu서울 → 호놀룰루7,310 km
• New York → London뉴욕 → 런던5,567 km
• Los Angeles → Tokyo로스앤젤레스 → 도쿄8,820 km
• London → Sydney런던 → 시드니16,996 km
• New York → Hamburg뉴욕 → 함부르크6,126 km
• Seoul → Melbourne서울 → 멜버른8,583 km
• Dubai → New York두바이 → 뉴욕11,002 km
• Singapore → London싱가포르 → 런던10,855 km
• San Francisco → Hong Kong샌프란시스코 → 홍콩11,097 km
• Madrid → Buenos Aires마드리드 → 부에노스아이레스10,046 km
• Cape Town → Perth케이프타운 → 퍼스8,695 km