Distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco (straight line)
The straight-line distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco, both in the United States, is 347 miles (559 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
347 miles
559 km · straight line
Heading from Los Angeles
319° (northwest)
initial compass bearing to San Francisco
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~40 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
Los AngelesSan 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.
Los Angeles to San Francisco at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 347 miles (559 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from Los Angeles
- 319° (northwest) to San Francisco
- Heading from San Francisco
- 137° (southeast) to Los Angeles
- Midpoint
- 35.9316° N, 120.2824° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 40 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.
- Los Angeles, United States
- 34.0522° N, 118.2437° W (city centre)
- San Francisco, United States
- 37.7749° N, 122.4194° W (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
Other distances from Los Angeles
- Los Angeles to Las Vegas229 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
- Los Angeles to Miami2,335 miles
Other distances from San Francisco
- 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
- San Francisco to New York2,566 miles
Questions
Is 347 miles (559 km) the driving distance from Los Angeles to San Francisco?
No. 347 miles (559 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 Los Angeles and San Francisco measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from Los Angeles's centre (34.0522° N, 118.2437° 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.