Frequently Asked Questions

A compass bearing is the direction of travel measured clockwise from true north, expressed as an angle from 0° to 360° — 0° is north, 90° is east, 180° is south, and 270° is west.

It's the direction you'd need to head at the start of your journey to follow the shortest (great-circle) path — because the Earth is curved, this bearing actually changes along the route unless you're traveling along the equator or a meridian.

Using spherical trigonometry with both points' latitude and longitude, applying the standard forward azimuth formula rather than treating the coordinates as points on a flat plane.

It's the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere, calculated here using the haversine formula, which accounts for the Earth's curvature.

Flat maps distort the Earth's curved surface. A straight line on most map projections is not the shortest real-world path, so the calculated bearing and distance differ from what a ruler on a map would suggest.

Decimal degrees, with negative values for south latitude and west longitude — for example, New York City is approximately 40.7128, -74.0060.

They're the 16-point compass rose labels — N, NNE, NE, ENE, E, and so on — giving a human-readable approximation of the precise numeric bearing.

Both are shown — kilometers as the primary result, with the mile equivalent alongside it.

It models the Earth as a perfect sphere, which is accurate to within about 0.5% of real-world distances — sufficient for most navigation, geography, and educational purposes.

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