Find Cities by Distance
Triangulate city locations using distances from two or more known cities. Perfect for geography games like Worldle and Globle, or for learning world geography.
Calculate City Distance
Find cities by entering distances from 2-3 known cities
How It Works
City Distance Triangulation uses simple geometry to find cities that match your distance criteria.
Select Two Cities
Choose two cities you know. These will be your reference points for triangulation.
Enter Distances
Input the distances from each reference city to your target city (in kilometers).
Find Matching Cities
We calculate where the distance circles intersect and show you all matching cities.
Why Use CityDistance?
Geography Games
Improve your skills in Worldle, Globle, and other geography guessing games. Learn to estimate distances and understand global geography better.
Geography Education
A powerful teaching tool for geography classes. Help students visualize distances and understand spatial relationships between cities.
Travel Planning
Find cities within a specific distance from multiple locations. Great for planning trips or finding meeting points.
Works Great With Popular Geography Games
Use our triangulation tool to improve your skills in these popular geography guessing games.
Worldle
Worldle gives you distance and direction hints after each guess. Enter the distances from your guessed countries to triangulate the mystery country's location.
GeoGuessr
Improve your distance estimation skills for GeoGuessr. Practice understanding how far cities are from each other to make better guesses.
Other Geo Games
Works with Tradle, Flagle, Statele, SatZoom, and any geography game that provides distance hints. Our tool adapts to any distance-based geography puzzle.
Calculation Method
Understanding the math behind city distance triangulation.
Great Circle Distance
We calculate the great circle distance (also called geodesic distance) between cities. This is the shortest path between two points on the Earth's surface, following the curvature of the planet.
Haversine Formula
Our calculator uses the Haversine formula, a well-established mathematical equation that accounts for Earth's spherical shape. It provides accuracy within 0.5% for most practical purposes.
Circle Intersection
By drawing distance circles around two or more reference cities, we find where they intersect. Cities near these intersection points match your distance criteria.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is city distance triangulation?
City distance triangulation is a technique to find a city's location by knowing its distances from two or more reference cities. By drawing circles with these distances as radii around reference cities, the intersection points reveal possible locations of your target city. It's commonly used in geography games like Worldle and Globle.
How accurate is the distance calculation?
Our calculations use the Haversine formula, which is accurate to within 0.5% for most distances. We use a tolerance of 10-15% when finding matching cities to account for the fact that distance hints in games are often rounded. For most geography games, this provides highly reliable results.
Can I use miles instead of kilometers?
Currently, our calculator uses kilometers (km) as the primary unit. To convert miles to kilometers, multiply the miles by 1.609. For example, 1000 miles ≈ 1609 km. We may add a unit toggle in future updates.
How do I solve Worldle with distance hints?
When playing Worldle, you receive distance hints after each guess. Enter the capital city of the countries you've guessed as reference cities, input the distances shown, and click Calculate. The tool will show you cities that match those distances, helping you narrow down the answer.
Why do circles look distorted on the map?
The distortion you see is caused by the Mercator projection, which stretches areas near the poles. While the circles may look elliptical on the map, they represent true distances on Earth's surface. For very large distances (over 5000km), the distortion becomes more noticeable.
What cities are included in the database?
Our database includes over 33,000 cities worldwide with populations of 15,000 or more. Data is sourced from GeoNames, a comprehensive geographical database. You can search for cities in multiple languages including local names and common alternate spellings.
Why use three cities instead of two?
Two reference cities create two intersection points, giving you two possible answer regions. Adding a third city narrows this down to a single location. If you're getting too many results with two cities, try adding a third reference point for more precision.