---
title: "IAH — George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Houston · Orbit"
description: "George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH/KIAH) serves Houston, United States. Opened 1969, named after George H. W. Bush, 48.1 million passengers in 2025."
url: https://orbitflights.app/airports/iah
---

Houston · United States · North America

# IAH — George Bush Intercontinental

George Bush Intercontinental Airport serves Houston, United States, 25 km from the city centre, and sits at 30.0°N, 95.3°W. This site carries 1 route touching it, with the great circle distance for each.

**IATA**
IAH
the code on your bag tag

**ICAO**
KIAH
used by air traffic control

**Opened**
1969
per Wikidata

**Passengers**
48.1M
in 2025

## History & name

George Bush Intercontinental Airport takes its name from Houston and from George Bush, President of the United States from 1989 to 1993\. Opened in 1969 and run by the Houston Airport System, it lies 25 km from Houston and handled 48.1 million passengers in 2025 on 5 runways, the longest 3,658 m.

Named after **George H. W. Bush** — 41st President of the United States (1989–1993)

Read more: [Wikipedia ↗](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%5FBush%5FIntercontinental%5FAirport) · [Wikidata ↗](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q744748)

## At a glance

**Full name**
George Bush Intercontinental Airport

**Serves**
Houston, United States

**City centre**
25 km from Houston

**Opened**
1969

**Operator**
Houston Airport System

**Passengers**
48.1 million in 2025

**Runways**
5 runways, longest 3,658 m

**Elevation**
97 ft (30 m)

**Map**
[Open in Google Maps ↗](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=29.98440,-95.34140)

**Website**
[fly2houston.com ↗](http://www.fly2houston.com/iah)

## Where it sits

30.0°N, 95.3°W puts IAH in the northern hemisphere, 3,334 km from the equator and 6,673 km from the North pole.

Of the 661 airports on this site it is the **307th** most northerly, which makes it the 355th most southerly.

## Straight through the middle

Straight down through the centre of the Earth comes out at 30.0°S, 84.7°E. The nearest airport on this site to that point is Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam (MRU) in Mauritius, still 2,905 km away — most of the planet's antipodes are ocean.

## What’s near it

The closest other airport on this site is **William P. Hobby** (HOU), 38 km away in a straight line. It is the only one within 100 km.

HOU William P. Hobby 38 km

## Distances from IAH

Great circle distance and an estimated time in the air.

| To                                                   |     | Distance  | Estimated |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | --- | --------- | --------- |
| [Sydney](https://orbitflights.app/routes/iah-to-syd) | SYD | 13,836 km | 17h 42m   |

[Distance from IAH to any airport →](https://orbitflights.app/distance?from=IAH&to=SYD) [Map a trip from IAH →](https://orbitflights.app/tools/flight-route-map?r=IAH-SYD)

## Where these facts come from

The profile is looked up, not written from memory: type, runways, elevation and the official website from [OurAirports](https://ourairports.com/data/) (public domain); opening year, namesake, operator and passenger count from [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/) (CC0); the city centre from [GeoNames](https://www.geonames.org/) (CC BY 4.0). Where a source has nothing, the line is left out. Distances, neighbours and the antipode are computed from the coordinates.

What you won’t find: terminal maps, airline lists, shops or live departures. Orbit is a logbook, not a flight tracker, and a page that guessed at those would be worse than one that leaves them out.

[Measure IAH to anywhere →](https://orbitflights.app/distance)

## Flown through IAH?

Orbit knows all 8,801 airports offline and works out the distance the moment you enter two codes.

[Download now](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qwertybit.orbit)

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Markdown copy of https://orbitflights.app/airports/iah for language models and agents. Site index: https://orbitflights.app/llms.txt