Distance between Chicago and Miami (straight line)

The straight-line distance between Chicago and Miami, both in the United States, is 1,189 miles (1,914 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

1,189 miles

1,914 km · straight line

Heading from Chicago

157° (south-southeast)

initial compass bearing to Miami

Flight time estimate, not a booking

~2 h 25 min

at about 800 km/h, in the air only

Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.

ChicagoMiamiThe 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 Miami at a glance

Straight-line distance
1,189 miles (1,914 km), as the crow flies
Heading from Chicago
157° (south-southeast) to Miami
Heading from Miami
341° (north-northwest) to Chicago
Midpoint
33.8678° N, 83.5688° W, halfway along the straight line
Flight time estimate, not a booking
About 2 h 25 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)
Miami, United States
25.7743° N, 80.1937° W (city centre)

Nearby city pairs

Other distances from Chicago

Other distances from Miami

Questions

Is 1,189 miles (1,914 km) the driving distance from Chicago to Miami?

No. 1,189 miles (1,914 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 Miami measured?

Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from Chicago's centre (41.8500° N, 87.6500° W) to Miami's (25.7743° N, 80.1937° 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.