How far is that, in things you have actually travelled?
Distance is the measurement people misjudge most, because nothing in daily life spans more than a few orders of magnitude.
2.37 × a marathon
100 km is further than 6 of the 11 references on this page.
Reference figures are measurements and are rounded; the unit conversion behind them is exact.
| Reference | Size | Yours ÷ theirs | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| football pitch | 0.105 km | 952× | |
| athletics lap | 0.4 km | 250× | |
| mile | 1.61 km | 62.1× | |
| 5K run | 5 km | 20× | |
| English Channel | 33.8 km | 2.96× | Dover to Calais |
| marathon | 42.2 km | 2.37× | |
| London to Paris | 344 km | 0.291× | |
| New York to Los Angeles | 3,944 km | 1/39.4 | |
| Earth’s diameter | 12,742 km | 1/127 | |
| once around the Earth | 40,075 km | 1/401 | |
| the Moon | 384,400 km | 1/3,844 | Average distance |
Worth knowing
- The Moon is 30 Earth-diameters away. Almost every diagram in a textbook draws it far too close.
- A commercial airliner would take about 17 days to reach the Moon at cruising speed, if it could.
Frequently asked
How far is it around the Earth?
40 075 km at the equator. That number is not a coincidence — the metre was originally defined as one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator.
How far away is the Moon?
It averages 384 400 km, varying from 356 500 at perigee to 406 700 at apogee. All eight planets would fit in the gap.