General Knowledge
How Far Apart: Distance Quiz
Closer than you think or worlds apart — can you guess the distance between famous places?
Closer than you think or worlds apart — can you guess the distance between famous places?
Russia and the United States are separated by just 3.8 kilometers across the Bering Strait at the Diomede Islands — closer than many city neighborhoods. The Mercator projection we grew up with radically distorts our sense of scale, making Greenland appear as large as Africa (it's actually 14 times smaller). Our mental maps mislead us constantly about what's near and what's far.
Each round presents 10 randomized questions from a pool of 50, with four multiple-choice options and instant feedback after every answer. Your final score comes with a performance tier and shareable results.
You'll discover surprising proximity like Perth being closer to Singapore than to Sydney, how the Panama and Suez Canals save shipping routes of thousands of kilometers, and the longest straight-line sea journey possible on Earth — a roughly 32,000-kilometer voyage from Pakistan to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Along the way you'll test yourself on great circle routes, ocean widths, and the real distances between the world's most famous cities.
Many people are shocked to learn that Perth is closer to Singapore than to Sydney, or that Miami is closer to Bogota than to Seattle. Edinburgh is nearly twice as far from London as it is from Oslo as the crow flies when measured along certain routes.
The Mercator projection preserves angles for navigation but massively inflates landmasses near the poles. Greenland looks as big as Africa, but Africa is roughly 14 times larger in actual area, which makes northern routes look longer than they really are.
The longest straight-line ocean path runs roughly 32,090 kilometers from the coast of Pakistan to the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, threading through the Mozambique Channel and down around South America without hitting land.
Last updated: April 2026