Use CityExtremes to discover the closest and farthest cities around the world

[M II A II R II K]

http://cityextremes.com/

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- For all cities with a population greater than one hundred thousand, Toronto (ON) is closest to Mississauga (ON) and farthest from Perth. The closest foreign city is Buffalo (NY) and the farthest domestic city is Saanich (BC). Filter to include all cities over 100k, 500k or 1 million in population.

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[Steely Dan]

the farthest city from Chicago is Perth, Australia at 17,666km.

i suspect that Perth is the farthest from a good deal of the US/canada.

[Yuri]

For São Paulo, it’s Kagoshima. Ironically, São Paulo houses world’s largest Japanese diaspora.

[JManc]

Closest: Austin (147 miles)
Furthest: Perth (10,589 miles)

[M II A II R II K]

Perth happens to be furthest from these places:

[KevinFromTexas]

Austin:

Closest: San Antonio - 73 miles
Farthest: Perth, Australia - 10,458 miles

Closest foreign: Monterrey, Mexico - 353 miles
Farthest domestic: New York - 1,513

North America
Closest: San Antonio - 73 miles
Farthest: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: 1,921 miles

Africa:
Closest: El-Jadida, Morocco - 5,082 miles
Farthest: Antananarivo, Madagascar

Asia:
Closest: Sapporo, Japan - 6,152 miles
Farthest: Tangerang, Indonesia - 10,146 miles

Australia and Oceania:
Closest: Auckland, New Zealand - 7,302 miles
Farthest: Perth, Australia - 10,458 miles

Europe:
Closest: Birmingham, United Kingdom - 4,829 miles
Farthest: Volgograd, Russia - 6,518 miles

South America:
Closest: Cartagena, Colombia - 1,977 miles
Farthest: Montevideo, Uruguay - 5,236 miles

[ChiSoxRox]

Alaska is far enough west that our antipode is pushed towards South Africa. No Fairbanks option, so I did Anchorage:

Farthest Cities KM
Port Elizabeth, South Africa 16,953
Cape Town, South Africa 16,857
Durban, South Africa 16,518
Soweto, South Africa 16,118
Johannesburg, South Africa 16,111

ETA: I'm a bit surprised Antananarivo, Madagascar doesn't sneak in. I'm presuming it's a bit too far north compared to South Africa. Checking on a distance calculator, Anchorage to Antananarivo is 15,115 km. Perth is "only" 13,299 km.

Checking for Fairbanks, the order is the same but the distances go *down* by 300 km or so. Fairbanks is far enough north that the great circle to South Africa bends closer to the pole than the Anchorage path, so you save quite a bit on longitudinal distance.

[M II A II R II K]

Which aren’t the true differences in an actual straight line. These distances are longer used g you account for travelling over the Earths curvature.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Which aren’t the true differences in an actual straight line. These distances are longer used g you account for travelling over the Earths curvature.

I assume these are great circle distances. They not be accounting for the flattening of the ellipsoid, but that's less than 1% effect.

edit: just checked Chicago to Perth.
The geodesic distance is 17,665.876502 km (using GeodSolve with the WGS84 ellipsoid) and the Haversine Distance (according to a random calcuator) is 17,660 km. So it is indeed probably using the geodesic (of course on these scales, it also matters where you consider each city to be...).

[MolsonExport]

For all cities with a population greater than five hundred thousand, Montreal (QC) is closest to Ottawa (ON) and farthest from Perth. The closest foreign city is Boston (MA) and the farthest domestic city is Vancouver (BC). See below for the top 5 closest and farthest cities (domestically, internationally and by continent) and to see which cities, if any, Montreal (QC) is the closest and farthest to. Filter to include all cities over 100k, 500k or 1 million in population.

Closest Cities KM
Canada Ottawa (ON), Canada 168
Canada Québec City (QC), Canada 229
US Boston (MA), United States of America 403
Canada Toronto (ON), Canada 507
Canada Mississauga (ON), Canada 529
Farthest Cities KM
Australia Perth, Australia 18,298
Australia Adelaide, Australia 17,067
Australia Melbourne, Australia 16,735
Australia Sydney, Australia 16,028
Australia Newcastle, Australia 15,926

[dimondpark]

The farthest from Oakland, CA is Antananarivo, Madagascar

[Razor]

Interesting

For Ottawa:

Closest Domestic - Montreal (QC) -168 km
Furthest Domestic - Vancouver (BC)- 3549 km

Closest Foreign- Boston (MA) - 504 km
Furthest Foreign- Perth Australia - 18,213 km

[dave8721]

For Cities with pop of over 500k Miami is closest to Havana (rather than any US city) and farthest from Perth (like much of the U.S.).

3 of Miami's closest 4 are outside the US: Havana, Jacksonville, Cancun, Kingston. Orlando and Tampa have small city limits so Jacksonville gets to sneak into the closest 4 due to its ridiculous city limits.

Btw, i never would have assumed Cancun was closer to Miami than Kingston.

[tayser]

For cities over 1 mil from Melbourne


El-Jadida, Morocco 17,574km
Casablanca, Morocco 17,504km
Marrakech, Morocco 17,465km
Kénitra, Morocco 17,440km
Madrid, Spain 17,312km

[Camelback]

Going back to the earlier question in geographic oddities. Is Santiago the most isolated big city in the world?

Santiago's farthest city is Xi'an, Shaanxi, China at 12,367 miles away.
Perth's farthest city is Boston at 11,621 miles away.