Distance between Chicago and Houston (straight line)
The straight-line distance between Chicago and Houston, both in the United States, is 939 miles (1,512 km), 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
939 miles
1,512 km · straight line
Heading from Chicago
210° (south-southwest)
initial compass bearing to Houston
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~1 h 55 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
ChicagoHoustonThe 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.
Chicago to Houston at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 939 miles (1,512 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from Chicago
- 210° (south-southwest) to Houston
- Heading from Houston
- 25° (north-northeast) to Chicago
- Midpoint
- 35.8679° N, 91.8016° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 1 h 55 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.
- Chicago, United States
- 41.8500° N, 87.6500° W (city centre)
- Houston, United States
- 29.7633° N, 95.3633° W (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
Other distances from Chicago
- Chicago to Toronto437 miles
- Chicago to New York712 miles
- Chicago to Miami1,189 miles
- Chicago to Las Vegas1,520 miles
- Chicago to Mexico City1,689 miles
- Chicago to Los Angeles1,741 miles
Other distances from Houston
- Houston to Miami967 miles
- Houston to Los Angeles1,371 miles
- Houston to New York1,417 miles
- Houston to San Francisco1,643 miles
Questions
Is 939 miles (1,512 km) the driving distance from Chicago to Houston?
No. 939 miles (1,512 km) 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 Chicago and Houston measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from Chicago's centre (41.8500° N, 87.6500° W) to Houston's (29.7633° N, 95.3633° W). 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.