Python | Calculate Distance between two places using Geopy

GeoPy is a Python library that makes geographical calculations easier for the users. In this article, we will see how to calculate the distance between 2 points on the earth in two ways.

How to Install GeoPy ?

pip install geopy

Geodesic Distance:
It is the length of the shortest path between 2 points on any surface. In our case, the surface is the earth. Below program illustrates how to calculate geodesic distance from latitude-longitude data.

# Importing the geodesic module from the library
from geopy.distance import geodesic

# Loading the lat-long data for Kolkata & Delhi
kolkata = (22.5726, 88.3639)
delhi = (28.7041, 77.1025)

# Print the distance calculated in km
print(geodesic(kolkata, delhi).km)

Output:

1318.13891581683

Great Circle Distance:
It is the length of the shortest path between 2 points on a sphere. In this case, the earth is assumed to be a perfect sphere. Below program illustrates how to calculate great-circle distance from latitude-longitude data.

# Importing the great_circle module from the library
from geopy.distance import great_circle

# Loading the lat-long data for Kolkata & Delhi
kolkata = (22.5726, 88.3639)
delhi = (28.7041, 77.1025)

# Print the distance calculated in km
print(great_circle(kolkata, delhi).km)

Output:

1317.7554645657162

Reference: https://geopy.readthedocs.io/en/stable/