Distance between London and Los Angeles (straight line)
The straight-line distance between London (United Kingdom) and Los Angeles (United States) is 5,440 miles (8,756 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
5,440 miles
8,756 km · straight line
Heading from London
312° (northwest)
initial compass bearing to Los Angeles
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~10 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.
LondonLos 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.
London to Los Angeles at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 5,440 miles (8,756 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from London
- 312° (northwest) to Los Angeles
- Heading from Los Angeles
- 34° (northeast) to London
- Midpoint
- 60.2732° N, 72.5174° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 10 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.
- London, United Kingdom
- 51.5085° N, 0.1257° W (city centre)
- Los Angeles, United States
- 34.0522° N, 118.2437° W (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
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
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 Chicago1,741 miles
- Los Angeles to Toronto2,171 miles
Questions
Is 5,440 miles (8,756 km) the driving distance from London to Los Angeles?
No. 5,440 miles (8,756 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 London and Los Angeles measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from London's centre (51.5085° N, 0.1257° 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.