Distance between San Francisco and Sydney (straight line)
The straight-line distance between San Francisco (United States) and Sydney (Australia) is 7,424 miles (11,948 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
7,424 miles
11,948 km · straight line
Heading from San Francisco
240° (west-southwest)
initial compass bearing to Sydney
Flight time estimate, not a booking
~14 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.
San FranciscoSydneyThe 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.
San Francisco to Sydney at a glance
- Straight-line distance
- 7,424 miles (11,948 km), as the crow flies
- Heading from San Francisco
- 240° (west-southwest) to Sydney
- Heading from Sydney
- 56° (northeast) to San Francisco
- Midpoint
- 2.6777° N, 166.9298° W, halfway along the straight line
- Flight time estimate, not a booking
- About 14 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.
- San Francisco, United States
- 37.7749° N, 122.4194° W (city centre)
- Sydney, Australia
- 33.8678° S, 151.2073° E (city centre)
Nearby city pairs
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
Other distances from Sydney
- Sydney to Gold Coast426 miles
- Sydney to Melbourne443 miles
- Sydney to Brisbane455 miles
- Sydney to Adelaide722 miles
- Sydney to Auckland1,340 miles
- Sydney to Perth2,044 miles
Questions
Is 7,424 miles (11,948 km) the driving distance from San Francisco to Sydney?
No. 7,424 miles (11,948 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 San Francisco and Sydney measured?
Along a great circle: the shortest line over the Earth's surface, from San Francisco's centre (37.7749° N, 122.4194° W) to Sydney's (33.8678° S, 151.2073° 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.