What is the use of the geographical coordinate system distance calculator?

this tool can help you to calculate the straight-line distance between two geographical coordinates

how to use?

Enter or paste the latitude and longitude coordinates of two points and click the Calculate button to calculate the distance between them

About great circle distance

A simple way to calculate the distance between two points is to use the Pythagorean Principle formula to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle (A²+B²=C²). This is the so-called Euclidean distance.

This is an interesting start, but it doesn't apply to geography because the distances between lines of latitude and longitude are not equal distances apart. As you get closer to the equator, the lines of latitude become further apart. If you use a simple triangulation equation, it might measure distance accurately in one location and incorrectly in another due to the curvature of the Earth.

great circle distance A long path around the Earth is called a great circle distance. That's the shortest distance between two points on a sphere, unlike points on a flat map, and combine that with the fact that latitude and longitude lines are not equidistant, and you have a difficult calculation.

Here's a great video explanation of how great circle distance works.

Haversine formula

Distance using the curvature of the Earth is contained in the Haversine formula, which uses trigonometry to account for the curvature of the Earth. When you calculate the distance between two places on Earth, a straight line is actually an arc.

This applies to air travel - have you ever looked at actual flight maps and noticed they are arched? That's because flying in an arch between two points is shorter than flying directly to that location.