Distance between Istanbul and London (straight line)
The straight-line distance between Istanbul (Turkey) and London (United Kingdom) is 1,552 miles (2,498 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
1,552 miles
2,498 km · straight line
Heading from Istanbul
308° (northwest)
initial compass bearing to London
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~3 h 5 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
IstanbulLondonThe 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.
Istanbul to London at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 1,552 miles (2,498 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from Istanbul
- 308° (northwest) to London
- Heading from London
- 106° (east-southeast) to Istanbul
- Midpoint
- 47.1828° N, 15.8377° E, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 3 h 5 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.
- Istanbul, Turkey
- 41.0138° N, 28.9497° E (city centre)
- London, United Kingdom
- 51.5085° N, 0.1257° W (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
Other distances from Istanbul
- Istanbul to Cairo768 miles
- Istanbul to Rome852 miles
- Istanbul to Berlin1,079 miles
- Istanbul to Amsterdam1,374 miles
- Istanbul to Barcelona1,387 miles
- Istanbul to Paris1,400 miles
Other distances from London
- London to Birmingham101 miles
- London to Manchester163 miles
- London to Liverpool178 miles
- London to Paris214 miles
- London to Amsterdam222 miles
- London to Edinburgh332 miles
Questions
Is 1,552 miles (2,498 km) the driving distance from Istanbul to London?
No. 1,552 miles (2,498 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 Istanbul and London measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from Istanbul's centre (41.0138° N, 28.9497° E) to London's (51.5085° N, 0.1257° 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.