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PEK → PVG

Beijing to Shanghai: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Beijing Capital to Shanghai Pudong is 1,099 km of great circle — 683 mi — and an estimated 1h 52m in the air. Both ends are in Asia.

Great circle
1,099 km
683 mi
Estimated in the air
1h 52m
block time
Furthest from equator
40.1°N
at 0% along
One lap of Earth
2.7%
of 40,075 km
The Beijing to Shanghai route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Beijing the path crosses China.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 40.1°N, 0% of the way along.

Holding a single compass bearing the whole way would cover almost exactly the same ground, so on this route the flat map and the globe agree.

From

PEK

Beijing Capital

Beijing, China · Asia

40.1°N, 116.6°E

Flights to Beijing
To

PVG

Shanghai Pudong

Shanghai, China · Asia

31.1°N, 121.8°E

Flights to Shanghai

How these numbers are worked out

The distance is the great circle between the two airports’ real coordinates — the shortest path over a sphere, and the measure airlines and loyalty programmes use. It is computed, not looked up from a table of published routes.

The time is an estimate derived from that distance, using the same arithmetic Orbit uses when you log a flight without timestamps: a typical airliner block speed of 500 mph plus thirty minutes for taxi, climb and descent. Real schedules run longer or shorter depending on winds, air traffic control routing and how far the gate is from the runway. Aircraft also do not fly perfect great circles — jet streams, airspace closures and ETOPS limits all bend the path, usually by a few percent.

Why the shortest path is a curve →

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