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YVR → NRT

Vancouver to Tokyo: distance, flight time and the route it really takes

Vancouver to Narita is 7,503 km of great circle — 4,662 mi — and an estimated 9h 49m in the air. It crosses from North America to Asia.

Great circle
7,503 km
4,662 mi
Estimated in the air
9h 49m
block time
Furthest from equator
55.2°N
at 34% along
One lap of Earth
18.7%
of 40,075 km
The Vancouver to Tokyo route drawn as a great circle arc on a globe

What the aircraft actually flies over

From Vancouver the path crosses 7,053 km of open water.

The furthest the great circle gets from the equator is 55.2°N, 34% of the way along.

Flying the line that looks straight on a Mercator map — one constant compass bearing — would cover 7,999 km. That is 497 km further, about 7% more, and roughly 37m of extra flying.

From

YVR

Vancouver

Vancouver, Canada · North America

49.2°N, 123.2°W

Flights to Vancouver
To

NRT

Narita

Tokyo, Japan · Asia

35.8°N, 140.4°E

Flights to Tokyo

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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