Distance between Barcelona and Cape Town (straight line)
The straight-line distance between Barcelona (Spain) and Cape Town (South Africa) is 8,538 km (5,305 miles), as the crow flies, measured from one city centre to the other. It is the shortest path over the Earth's surface; any road between them is longer.
Straight-line distance
8,538 km
5,305 miles · straight line
Heading from Barcelona
166° (south-southeast)
initial compass bearing to Cape Town
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~10 h 40 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
BarcelonaCape TownThe line is the great circle: straight over the globe, curved on a flat map.
Measure your own two places
Pick any two cities, addresses or coordinates in the calculator, or start from where you are standing. It gives the same straight-line distance, in miles and kilometres.
Barcelona to Cape Town at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 8,538 km (5,305 miles), as the crow flies
- Heading from Barcelona
- 166° (south-southeast) to Cape Town
- Heading from Cape Town
- 348° (north-northwest) to Barcelona
- Midpoint
- 3.7692° N, 10.7032° E, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 10 h 40 min in the air at a cruising speed of 800 km/h along the straight line. Take-off, landing, the real flight path and any stops add more.
- Barcelona, Spain
- 41.3888° N, 2.1590° E (city centre)
- Cape Town, South Africa
- 33.9258° S, 18.4232° E (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
Other distances from Barcelona
- Barcelona to Madrid504 km
- Barcelona to Paris830 km
- Barcelona to Rome862 km
- Barcelona to Lisbon1,006 km
- Barcelona to London1,139 km
- Barcelona to Amsterdam1,239 km
Other distances from Cape Town
- Cape Town to Gqeberha663 km
- Cape Town to Bloemfontein911 km
- Cape Town to Johannesburg1,262 km
- Cape Town to Durban1,272 km
- Cape Town to Pretoria1,308 km
- Cape Town to São Paulo6,345 km
Questions
Is 8,538 km (5,305 miles) the driving distance from Barcelona to Cape Town?
No. 8,538 km (5,305 miles) is the straight-line distance between the two city centres, as the crow flies. A road route is always longer, because roads bend around terrain and water, and MapGO does not measure driving distance or travel time.
How is the distance between Barcelona and Cape Town measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from Barcelona's centre (41.3888° N, 2.1590° E) to Cape Town's (33.9258° S, 18.4232° E). This is what "straight-line distance" and "as the crow flies" mean on a globe. On a flat map the line can look curved.
How accurate is this distance?
Within about 0.5% for the two centre points. The figure treats the Earth as a sphere (the haversine formula), while the real Earth is slightly flattened, which shifts a long straight-line distance by up to about 0.5%. Measuring from another part of either city changes it more, since a large city can be tens of kilometres across.
Computed by MapGO from each city's centre point (GeoNames) with the haversine formula. All distances on this page are straight lines over the Earth's surface, not road distances.