Distance between Chicago and Los Angeles (straight line)
The straight-line distance between Chicago and Los Angeles, both in the United States, is 1,741 miles (2,802 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
1,741 miles
2,802 km · straight line
Heading from Chicago
262° (west)
initial compass bearing to Los Angeles
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~3 h 30 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
ChicagoLos AngelesThe 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 Los Angeles at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 1,741 miles (2,802 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from Chicago
- 262° (west) to Los Angeles
- Heading from Los Angeles
- 63° (east-northeast) to Chicago
- Midpoint
- 38.9546° N, 103.7798° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 3 h 30 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)
- Los Angeles, United States
- 34.0522° N, 118.2437° W (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
Other distances from Chicago
- Chicago to Toronto437 miles
- Chicago to New York712 miles
- Chicago to Houston939 miles
- Chicago to Miami1,189 miles
- Chicago to Las Vegas1,520 miles
- Chicago to Mexico City1,689 miles
Other distances from Los Angeles
- Los Angeles to Las Vegas229 miles
- Los Angeles to San Francisco347 miles
- Los Angeles to Houston1,371 miles
- Los Angeles to Mexico City1,548 miles
- Los Angeles to Toronto2,171 miles
- Los Angeles to Miami2,335 miles
Questions
Is 1,741 miles (2,802 km) the driving distance from Chicago to Los Angeles?
No. 1,741 miles (2,802 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 Los Angeles measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from Chicago's centre (41.8500° N, 87.6500° W) to Los Angeles's (34.0522° N, 118.2437° 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.