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Google Maps can now tell you the exact distance between two points

Google Maps can now tell you the exact distance between two points

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Google Maps is making it a whole lot easier to find out exactly how far apart any two (or more) points are on a map. As of yesterday, you can now right click anywhere on Google Maps on the web and choose "measure distance" to bring up a digital ruler that'll tell you just how far away its final point is. You aren't confined to the streets either: Maps can measure from any one point to another, be it in the ocean, on a building, or on the other side of the globe. Multiple points can be dropped down too, allowing the ruler to change directions.

Though Google Maps has always given distance measurements when routing directions, those have been confined to whatever paths are along the route. If you wanted to simply measure between two points on the map, you had to rely on the tiny distance marker in Maps' legend, using that to trace a distance on your own. By no means was it very helpful.