Draw a radius circle on a map
Area inside the circle
78.539 km²
30.324 mi² · circumference 31.416 km
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Up to 200 rows. Read in your browser, never uploaded.
One place per row: name (optional), latitude, longitude. Decimals use a point. Addresses are not looked up.
More numbers and share
Radius 5,000 m = 5 km = 3.107 mi = 2.7 nmi.
Diameter 10 km. Area 7,853.9 ha = 19,407.4 ac.
Flat-plane check: π × r² = 78.54 km².
WGS 84 · geodesic · Guide, examples and sources below
How do I draw a circle of a given radius on a map?
Click a center on the map, then type a radius in kilometers or miles, or a walking time in minutes. The circle is drawn at once, with its area or the reach of your walk.
Click the map where the center should be, or type its coordinates and press Set center. Then enter the radius and pick the unit: kilometers, miles, nautical miles, meters or feet. The circle is drawn straight away, and the panel shows the area inside it and the length of its edge.
This is the tool for a delivery or service area, a search radius around a lost item, the reach of a signal, a safety zone, or the question “what is within 5 miles of here?”. It does not search for addresses, because address lookup needs a geocoding service and sending what you type to a third party. Instead, use the coordinates your map app shows for a place; most map apps show them when you press and hold or right-click a spot.
The radius is measured on the ground, along the surface of the Earth. It is not the pixel distance on the screen, which changes with the zoom level and with the latitude of a web map.
How far can I walk in a set time?
Walking time becomes a distance through a walking speed. The U.S. Federal Highway Administration gives 1.2 m/s (4.0 ft/s) as the speed the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices recommends for calculating pedestrian clearance intervals at traffic signals, reports walking speeds from 0.6 to 1.3 m/s in other studies, and recommends an assumed 0.9 m/s for less capable older pedestrians (FHWA, pedestrian walking speed).
A route is longer than the straight line between two places. The FHWA page on pedestrian networks gives a route length generally less than 1.4 times the straight-line distance, and ideally less than 1.2 times (FHWA, pedestrian route length). The tool divides the walk by 1.4 by default, and offers 1.2 for the ideal case.
Worked example. 1.2 m/s for 15 minutes is 1,080 m of walking. With a route of at most 1.4 times the straight line, the reach is 1,080 ÷ 1.4 = 771 m; with at most 1.2 times, it is 900 m. At that speed no place can be farther than 1,080 m away in a straight line: that is the dashed ring on the map.
The reach is a straight-line estimate. It does not follow streets, rivers, walls or hills, so the area you can really cover on foot can be smaller than the circle. Use it to plan a walk, a visit or a delivery area, and check the real route before you depend on it.
Is the circle a real circle on the Earth?
Yes. Every point of the line is exactly the radius away from the center, measured on the WGS 84 ellipsoid. The tool computes 128 points around the center with the direct geodesic problem (go a given distance along a given bearing) and joins them. On a web map the circle can look slightly stretched near the poles, because the map’s own scale grows with latitude; the ground distance is still the radius everywhere on the line.
Worked example. A 10 km circle around Paris (48.8566, 2.3522) encloses 314.155 km², and its edge is 62.832 km long. The flat-plane formulas give π × 10² = 314.159 km² and 2π × 10 = 62.832 km. The two agree to better than five digits at this size; the gap grows with the radius, because the Earth’s surface curves.
What area and circumference does each radius give?
| Radius | Area (km²) | Area (mi²) | Circumference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 km (0.62 mi) | 3.142 km² | 1.213 mi² | 6.283 km |
| 5 km (3.11 mi) | 78.539 km² | 30.324 mi² | 31.416 km |
| 10 km (6.21 mi) | 314.16 km² | 121.3 mi² | 62.832 km |
| 25 km (15.53 mi) | 1,963.5 km² | 758.1 mi² | 157.08 km |
| 50 km (31.07 mi) | 7,853.8 km² | 3,032.4 mi² | 314.16 km |
| 100 km (62.14 mi) | 31,414.9 km² | 12,129.4 mi² | 628.29 km |
Computed by the same code as the tool. For small radii the area is within a few parts in a million of π × r²; at 100 km the curvature of the Earth makes it slightly smaller.
Radius, diameter and what to use for what
The radius is the distance from the center to the edge; the diameter is twice that. A “10 km radius” covers 20 km across. When a service says it covers “within 10 miles”, that normally means a radius, measured in a straight line, not the distance by road, so a place inside the circle can still be farther to drive.
If you need the distance between the center and one particular place, use the distance measurer. If you need the direction as well, the bearing and midpoint tool gives it. For the area of an irregular shape rather than a circle, use the area calculator. Two common sizes open with the circle already set: the 10 mile radius and the 25 mile radius.
Questions about radius circles
How do I draw a 5 km or 10 mile radius around a point?
Set the center by clicking the map or typing its coordinates, enter 5 and choose kilometers (or 10 and miles), and the circle is drawn. The radius field accepts decimals, such as 2.5.
Can I search by address or place name?
Not in this tool. Looking up an address means sending your text to a geocoding service, which this site does not do. Enter coordinates instead; most map apps show them for any spot you press and hold or right-click.
Is the radius measured along roads?
No. It is a straight line over the Earth’s surface from the center. Roads, rivers and mountains make real travel distances longer.
Why is the circle not perfectly round on screen?
The base map is a flat projection with a scale that grows toward the poles. The circle is exact on the ground, so it can look stretched on the screen at high latitudes, but every point of it is the same ground distance from the center.
What is the area of a circle with a 1 km radius?
About 3.14 square kilometers (π × 1²), which is roughly 314 hectares or 776 acres. The table above lists other common radii.
Can I draw several circles at once?
Yes, from a CSV list of coordinates: one place per row, with its name first if you like, for example Paris,48.86,2.35. Every row gets a circle of the same radius, up to 200 rows, and changing the radius redraws all of them. A row that cannot be read is listed by its line number, and the other rows are still drawn. Addresses are not looked up, so each row needs latitude and longitude. The list is not uploaded or saved: leaving the page or reloading it clears it. The link you copy holds only the one center you set.
Can it show how far I can walk in a set time?
Yes. Choose Walking time, type the minutes, then pick a walking speed and a route length. The tool turns the time into a straight-line radius and draws it, with a dashed ring for the farthest a straight line can go in that time. The speeds and route lengths come from the Federal Highway Administration pages in the sources. It does not follow streets, so the circle is an estimate, not a route.
Sources and limits
- C. F. F. Karney, “Algorithms for geodesics”, J. Geodesy 87 (2013) 43–55
The direct and inverse geodesic algorithms used for distance, bearing, midpoint, circle and polygon area.
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- World Geodetic System (WGS 84)
Semi-major axis 6 378 137 m, flattening 1/298.257223563, semi-minor axis 6 356 752.314245 m.
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- NIST Guide to the SI, Appendix B.8: conversion factors
Exact factors: mile 1 609.344 m, nautical mile 1 852 m, foot 0.3048 m, yard 0.9144 m, hectare 10 000 m².
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- NIST, U.S. survey foot: revised unit conversion factors
Acre = 43 560 ft² = 4 046.856 422 4 m² and square mile = 640 acres = 2 589 988.110 336 m² on the international foot, which replaced the survey foot after 31 December 2022.
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- U.S. Federal Highway Administration, pedestrian walking speed (highways.dot.gov/media/73441)
Walking speed of 1.2 m/s (4.0 ft/s) recommended by the MUTCD for pedestrian clearance intervals; walking speeds of 0.6 to 1.3 m/s found in other studies; 0.9 m/s for less capable older pedestrians.
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- U.S. Federal Highway Administration, pedestrian route length (highways.dot.gov/media/8521)
Route length generally less than 1.4 times, and ideally less than 1.2 times, the straight-line distance; 1.0 m/s crosswalk walking speed where many older pedestrians cross.
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- OpenFreeMap
No registration, no API keys, no cookies; commercial use allowed; no limits on map views or requests; attribution required.
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- OpenFreeMap terms of service (updated 9 September 2026)
A free service provided as is, with no warranties; automated collection of data without permission is not allowed.
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- OpenStreetMap copyright and license
Map data is under the Open Database License; credit to OpenStreetMap is required.
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These are calculation aids, not survey instruments. They measure on a mathematical model of the Earth (WGS 84); for a legal boundary, engineering or navigation, use a licensed surveyor or the official chart. Nothing you type or load leaves your browser.
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