Distance between London and San Francisco (straight line)
The straight-line distance between London (United Kingdom) and San Francisco (United States) is 5,354 miles (8,616 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
5,354 miles
8,616 km · straight line
Heading from London
317° (northwest)
initial compass bearing to San Francisco
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~10 h 45 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
LondonSan FranciscoThe 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 San Francisco at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 5,354 miles (8,616 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from London
- 317° (northwest) to San Francisco
- Heading from San Francisco
- 33° (north-northeast) to London
- Midpoint
- 63.4398° N, 73.4533° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 10 h 45 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)
- San Francisco, United States
- 37.7749° N, 122.4194° 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 San Francisco
- San Francisco to Los Angeles347 miles
- San Francisco to Las Vegas417 miles
- San Francisco to Houston1,643 miles
- San Francisco to Chicago1,854 miles
- San Francisco to Mexico City1,888 miles
- San Francisco to Toronto2,263 miles
Questions
Is 5,354 miles (8,616 km) the driving distance from London to San Francisco?
No. 5,354 miles (8,616 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 San Francisco measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from London's centre (51.5085° N, 0.1257° W) to San Francisco's (37.7749° N, 122.4194° 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.