Distance Calculator for Driving Between Australian Cities

Explore detailed travel distances and routes for trips across Australia. This distance calculator provides road and air distance measurements, travel time estimates, and practical route mapping.

This distance calculator, spanning Australia and beyond, simplifies planning your journeys. Enter starting and destination points in the "From" and "To" fields, accepting city names, addresses, or GPS coordinates. Click the crosshair icon to pick locations directly on the map. Press "Calculate" to proceed.

Tailor your trip with "Fuel consumption" and "Fuel price" fields to estimate fuel costs accurately. For a customized route, use "Advanced options" to add stops or adjust speed settings, ensuring your travel is just as you like it, whether you're in a hurry or prefer a leisurely pace.

Sample Road Routes Between Cities

Practical Applications of the Distance Calculator

Check
route for optimality
Save
fuel and travel costs
Calculate
route metrics
Plan
departure and arrival times

Family Holiday Road Trip Planning: Families planning a summer getaway can use the distance calculator to map out their journey, factoring in fuel consumption and current fuel prices. This ensures they can budget for petrol costs and plan stops at kid-friendly spots along the way.

Business Travel Route Mapping: For professionals driving to business appointments, the distance calculator helps plot the most efficient routes. This tool aids in scheduling meetings based on travel time and calculating travel expenses, including fuel costs.

Logistics and Freight Cost Estimation: Freight forwarders and logistics companies benefit from the distance calculator by estimating the mileage for transportation routes. This allows them to determine shipping costs based on their tariffs, ensuring accurate billing and efficient route planning for long hauls.

Midpoint Meetings for Friends: Friends living far apart can find a halfway point to meet, making the distance calculator invaluable for organising catch-ups or adventures, ensuring fairness in travel distances for everyone involved.

Find Distances Between Two Cities Across Australia

Infrastructure developments such as new roads, highways, and bridges mean the distance between cities might vary annually.

Our online calculator enhances your favourite GPS navigator, allowing you to plan your route ahead of time, with the navigator taking over en route.

Leveraging OSM data, our platform offers the key functionalities of Google Maps, including:

Our calculator also includes several unique features:

Australia and Worldwide

11,186 localities covered in Australia. 1,971,411 localities worldwide.

This service measures the distance between cities around the world and is available in several languages:

How Distances Are Computed Between Cities and Points

Algorithm for Distance and Travel Time Calculation

This calculator utilizes shortest path search algorithms within a weighted road graph, including Dijkstra, A-Star, and Contraction Hierarchies. Unlike other calculators that typically use either distance or travel time as graph weights, this tool optimizes for drive time with a preference for higher-class roads, factoring in road priority.

The road graph is built using OpenStreetMap data, calculating distances between road segments from their precise GPS coordinates with the haversine formula, which measures the "air distance" or straight line distance between points. Since road distances deviate from straight line distances due to curves and directional changes, the tool models the road as a series of straight segments. For each segment, the haversine formula is applied, allowing accurate calculation of road distances.

Recognizing that cities span more than a single point, the tool selects central points within cities to calculate distances. Routes can be personalized to start or end outside city centers by inputting specific addresses or choosing points on a map. Additionally, users have the flexibility to adjust the start and end points directly on the map.

Travel time is estimated by segmenting the route and assessing the maximum speed limit on each segment. This information helps calculate the fastest possible travel time for the journey.

It's important to note that route calculations are based on computer models, which aren't flawless. Planning should include allowances for potential inaccuracies.

Alternative Distance Calculation Methods

Opening a highway atlas and manually plotting a route offers a straightforward method for estimating distances. Rolling a curvimeter along your chosen path allows you to gauge approximate mileage. For time estimations, consider an average speed of 80 km/h on main intercity roads. Though these figures are rough, their simplicity is a clear benefit.

In the absence of a curvimeter, a ruler makes a good substitute. Starting with the ruler's zero point at the beginning of your route, trace along, closely following the road's twists and turns. Then, translate this measurement into kilometers or miles based on the map's scale, typically found on each page of the atlas.

Distance between cities can also be determined using tables in atlases and guidebooks, a particularly handy method for journeys between major urban areas. It's worth noting, however, that these tables often exclude smaller towns. For those planning routes between major cities, pre-calculated distance tables for Australia, accessible on various websites, atlases, or guidebooks, offer a straightforward method. It's worth noting, however, that these tables might not cover smaller towns.

Have any questions? Contact us!
  • Privacy
  • Terms
  • Credits
  • About Us
  • Contact Us