Great Circle Map

A globe you can turn in any direction, including straight over the poles. Great circle routes cross the poles, so we built a globe that follows them there. Enter two airports and the shortest path between them is drawn on the Earth itself, with distance and bearing on every leg.

A Globe With No Pole Clamp

Most map apps clamp the view at the poles. North stays up, and the globe stops turning right where great circle routes go. Great Circle Map uses a quaternion arcball instead. Drag in any direction and the globe follows, straight over the North or South Pole. Drag along the outer edge and the view rolls, so any direction can face upward.

Find Any Airport

• Search the full OurAirports database by IATA code, ICAO code, or city name.
• Enter two airports and the great circle between them is drawn with its distance.
• Recent routes save automatically and recreate with one tap.

Waypoints and Weather

• Double-tap anywhere on the globe to drop a waypoint. Double-tap it again to delete it.
• Add as many waypoints as you want. There is no limit.
• Every waypoint shows current conditions, temperature, and wind direction and speed in knots, from Open-Meteo.

Distance on Every Leg

• Each leg carries a sliding distance label and its initial bearing.
• A running total stays pinned at the top of the screen.
• Units switch between kilometers, nautical miles, and statute miles.

Choose Your Earth

• NASA Blue Marble satellite imagery or Natural Earth relief.
• Toggle borders, airports, labels, and the grid.
• View the globe in perspective or orthographic projection.

Share the Route

• Create Map exports your route as a flat map projection image.
• The map unrolls across the antimeridian, so polar routes render cleanly.

Privacy

There are no analytics and no tracking. Weather requests send only waypoint coordinates to Open-Meteo. The privacy policy is at https://greatcirclemap.app/privacy-policy-great-circle-map

Learn More

The guide at https://greatcirclemap.app/guide.html walks through every feature.