Destination Point Calculator
Given a start point, an initial bearing, and a distance, calculate where you end up. Spherical great-circle formula, with a map showing the path. Free, runs in your browser.
Common use cases
- Geofencing — defining a point at a given distance and direction from a centre.
- Aviation & marine — "if I fly 200 nm on heading 045, where am I?"
- Sensor placement — placing an instrument a known offset from a surveyed marker.
- Game dev / AR — projecting a virtual object a fixed real-world distance along a direction.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a destination point calculation?
Given a starting coordinate, an initial bearing, and a distance, the destination point is where you would arrive if you travelled that distance in a straight great-circle path along that bearing. This is the inverse of the Bearing Calculator: instead of measuring between two known points, you predict a third point from two of them.
What formula does this use?
The spherical forward kinematics formula: φ2 = asin(sin φ1 · cos δ + cos φ1 · sin δ · cos θ), λ2 = λ1 + atan2(sin θ · sin δ · cos φ1, cos δ − sin φ1 · sin φ2), where δ = distance / Earth_radius is the angular distance in radians and θ is the bearing.
How accurate is it?
Sub-metre accurate on a spherical Earth (R = 6371 km). For survey-grade work the difference between sphere and ellipsoid (WGS84) matters at the ~0.3% level over long distances — if you need millimetre precision use Vincenty's formula, but for navigation, geofencing, and most app use cases this is more than good enough.
Why does my path curve on the map?
Because the calculation follows a great circle (the shortest path on a sphere), which appears curved when drawn on a flat Web Mercator map — except along the equator or a meridian. The dashed line on the map shows this great-circle path.