Distance between New York and San Francisco (straight line)
The straight-line distance between New York and San Francisco, both in the United States, is 2,566 miles (4,129 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
2,566 miles
4,129 km · straight line
Heading from New York
282° (west-northwest)
initial compass bearing to San Francisco
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~5 h 10 min
at about 800 km/h, in the air only
Straight-line (great-circle) distance, as the crow flies. The road distance is longer.
New YorkSan 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.
New York to San Francisco at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 2,566 miles (4,129 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from New York
- 282° (west-northwest) to San Francisco
- Heading from San Francisco
- 70° (east-northeast) to New York
- Midpoint
- 41.8472° N, 98.7525° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 5 h 10 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.
- New York, United States
- 40.7143° N, 74.0060° W (city centre)
- San Francisco, United States
- 37.7749° N, 122.4194° W (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
Other distances from New York
- New York to Toronto345 miles
- New York to Chicago712 miles
- New York to Miami1,092 miles
- New York to Houston1,417 miles
- New York to Mexico City2,087 miles
- New York to Las Vegas2,227 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 2,566 miles (4,129 km) the driving distance from New York to San Francisco?
No. 2,566 miles (4,129 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 New York and San Francisco measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from New York's centre (40.7143° N, 74.0060° 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.