Measure a map distance without cutting corners
Follow bends and separate straight-line distance from an actual route.
Choose what you mean by distance
The shortest line between two locations is not the same as a path, road or water route. Decide which line you intend to measure before adding points. Kalkylkartan adds segments between your points; it does not automatically follow roads or check access.
Follow the bends
Place points at direction changes and along curves. Two endpoints across a bend measure the chord, not the curved path. Zoom in enough to distinguish the relevant edge, but remember that imagery itself can be imprecise. More points help only when they follow the intended route.
Repeat and compare
Redraw a difficult section with more carefully placed points and compare its length. Large differences suggest that the first line cut corners or followed a different feature. Our distance benchmark uses a 90° arc with a 1,000 metre radius and compares increasingly dense point sets against the reference length π × 1,000 / 2.
What the line cannot tell you
The measurement does not include hills, stairs, closures or detours unless they are represented by the chosen geometry, and no elevation adjustment is applied. A line on water is not a safety assessment. Describe the result as a map-based estimate of the route you drew.