Straight Line Distance Calculator - As the Crow Flies
Measure the straight-line distance between any two UK locations in miles and kilometres. Instant results, no sign-up.
Enter two cities, towns, or UK postcodes to instantly see the straight-line ("as the crow flies") distance between them in miles and kilometres. Under the straight-line figure it shows the distance and drive time by road, worked out on our own routing server, so you can see how much further the drive really is. It also gives a compass bearing and plots both points on an interactive map. Useful for quick comparisons when planning travel or checking how far apart two places really are in a direct line. Share your result via a direct link, or browse the popular distances section for common UK city-to-city measurements.
Free Straight Line Distance Calculator
Need the as-the-crow-flies distance between two cities, towns, or postcodes? This free UK straight line distance calculator gives you an instant answer in miles, kilometres, and nautical miles. Just type two place names or postcodes and the tool plots both points on a map with a direct line between them.
Straight line distance (also called great-circle distance) is the shortest path between two points on Earth, ignoring roads and terrain. It's the quickest way to see how far apart two places really are in a direct line - useful for flight planning, property searches, catchment checks, and anywhere you need the true point-to-point distance rather than a driving route.
What Can You Search For?
The tool accepts a wide range of inputs:
- City names - London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff
- Town names - Windsor, Stratford-upon-Avon, St Andrews
- UK postcodes - SW1A 1AA, M1 1AA, EH1 1YZ
- Places with context - "Oxford, UK" or "Cambridge, England"
- International cities - Paris, New York, Sydney, Tokyo
For UK postcodes, we use local data for instant results. For other places, we use geocoding services to find the location.
Understanding the Results
Straight-Line Distance
The distance shown is the straight-line distance (also called "as the crow flies" or great-circle distance). This is the shortest possible distance between two points on Earth's surface, accounting for the planet's curvature.
What Does "As the Crow Flies" Mean?
"As the crow flies" is an everyday way of saying straight-line distance: how far apart two places are if you could go directly from one to the other, over hills, rivers and buildings, without following a road or path. It is the shortest possible distance between them, which is why the distance by road is always longer.
How Much Longer Is the Drive?
Roads bend around hills, rivers, estuaries and fields, and reach a place through junctions rather than heading straight for it, so the drive is always longer than the straight line. We measured how much longer, and it depends on how far you are going:
| Straight-line distance | Typical road distance | Middle half of journeys | Drive time per straight-line mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 2 miles | 57% longer | 33% to 96% longer | 5 minutes |
| 2 to 5 miles | 46% longer | 32% to 67% longer | 3.5 minutes |
| 5 to 15 miles | 43% longer | 29% to 60% longer | 2.6 minutes |
| 15 to 50 miles | 37% longer | 28% to 47% longer | 2 minutes |
| 50 to 150 miles | 29% longer | 25% to 37% longer | 1.7 minutes |
| Over 150 miles | 33% longer | 25% to 44% longer | 1.6 minutes |
Across everything we measured, the drive was typically 37% longer than the straight line. Short trips come out longest in proportion, because a few streets of detour matter more over one mile than over a hundred. Water makes the biggest difference of all: Southend to Sheerness is about 9 miles across the Thames estuary but 62 miles by road, and North Berwick to Elie is about 12 miles across the Firth of Forth but 76 miles round by the bridges.
How we measured: in October 2026 we asked our own routing server for the fastest road route between 475 pairs of postcodes picked at random across England, Scotland and Wales, about 80 in each distance band, and compared each with the straight-line distance. "Typical" is the median, the "middle half" runs from the 25th to the 75th percentile, and drive times assume clear roads.
Bearing
The bearing tells you the compass direction from the first place to the second. A bearing of 0° means due north, 90° is east, 180° is south, and 270° is west.
Do Schools Use Straight-Line Distance?
Often, but each admission authority sets its own rule, so check the one that applies to you. In England the School Admissions Code requires every admission authority to say how it measures home-to-school distance: how your home's point is fixed and which point at the school it measures to. Most measure a straight line, using their own computer system, from your home's address point in Ordnance Survey address data (some describe it as the front door) to a set point at the school, such as the main gate or main entrance. Where several homes share one building, such as a block of flats, one point is often used for the whole building. See, for example, the published methods of Croydon, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire.
Free school transport is measured differently. In England it uses the shortest route a child can walk with reasonable safety, against statutory walking distances of 2 miles for children under 8 and 3 miles from age 8 (see, for example, Nottinghamshire's explanation). In Scotland, school places mainly follow catchment areas rather than distance, and transport eligibility is measured along the shortest suitable walking route from the house to the school gate, with the same 2 and 3 mile thresholds (see Edinburgh's guidance).
How our figure differs: this calculator measures between the centres of postcodes (or the places you search for), not between your home's address point and the school's measuring point. The two can differ by a few hundred metres, which can matter when places are allocated by distance. Use it as a guide, and rely on your council's or the school's own measurement for an application.
Common Distance Questions
How far is London from Manchester?
The straight-line distance from London to Manchester is approximately 163 miles (262 km). By road, it's about 200 miles and takes around 4 hours by car or 2 hours by train.
How far is London from Edinburgh?
London to Edinburgh is approximately 332 miles (534 km) as the crow flies. The train journey takes around 4.5 hours, while driving is approximately 400 miles and 7 hours.
How far is Glasgow from Edinburgh?
Glasgow and Edinburgh are about 42 miles (68 km) apart in a straight line. They're well connected by road and rail, with journey times of about 1 hour.
How far is Liverpool from Manchester?
Liverpool to Manchester is approximately 31 miles (50 km) as the crow flies. By road or rail, the journey takes about 1 hour.
Why is driving distance longer than straight-line distance?
Roads have to go around things a straight line crosses, such as hills, rivers, estuaries and private land, and they reach a destination through junctions rather than heading straight for it. When we measured 475 random pairs of UK postcodes on our own routing server, the drive was typically 57% longer than the straight line for trips under 2 miles, 37% longer for 15 to 50 miles and 33% longer for trips over 150 miles. Where an estuary or sea loch is in the way, the road can be several times longer.
Is 'as the crow flies' the same as straight-line distance?
Yes. 'As the crow flies' means the straight-line distance between two places, ignoring roads, paths and terrain. This calculator measures it along the curve of the Earth (the great-circle distance), which is what maps and distance tools normally mean by it.
Related Guides & Tools
More tools for measuring and mapping:
- Postcode Distance Calculator - Comparing postcodes specifically? Use the dedicated postcode distance tool, with batch lookup and CSV export
- Measure Distance - Trace a route on the map to measure the total distance
- Radius Map - Draw circles to see what's within a certain distance
- Drive Time Map - Need the area reachable rather than point-to-point distance? See the Drive Time Map tool
- Area Calculator - Measure land area by drawing on the map
- Route Optimiser - Plan efficient multi-stop delivery routes
- Data Sources - Where our data comes from and how it's updated