Distance between Los Angeles and Tokyo (straight line)

The straight-line distance between Los Angeles (United States) and Tokyo (Japan) is 5,478 miles (8,815 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

5,478 miles

8,815 km · straight line

Heading from Los Angeles

306° (northwest)

initial compass bearing to Tokyo

Flight time estimate, not a booking

~11 h

at about 800 km/h, in the air only

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

Los AngelesTokyoThe 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 Tokyo at a glance

Straight-line distance
5,478 miles (8,815 km), as the crow flies
Heading from Los Angeles
306° (northwest) to Tokyo
Heading from Tokyo
56° (northeast) to Los Angeles
Midpoint
47.9329° N, 168.5707° W, halfway along the straight line
Flight time estimate, not a booking
About 11 h 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)
Tokyo, Japan
35.6895° N, 139.6917° E (city centre)

Nearby city pairs

Other distances from Tokyo

Questions

Is 5,478 miles (8,815 km) the driving distance from Los Angeles to Tokyo?

No. 5,478 miles (8,815 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 Tokyo 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 Tokyo's (35.6895° N, 139.6917° E). 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.