More in Compass (5)
Compass Heading Calculator
Bearings between two points, with magnetic declination.
How to use Compass Heading Calculator
- Type a place in From and pick a match from the list, or press Enter to take the top one. Cities, addresses, landmarks, and decimal coordinates written as lat, lon (for example 40.7128, -74.0060) all work.
- Do the same in To, then press Get bearing.
- Read the result: the starting bearing in degrees with its 16-point direction (like NE or WSW), the bearing you arrive on, and the magnetic declination at your From point.
- On the rose, the TRUE needle points along your starting bearing and the MAG needle shows where magnetic north sits relative to true north.
- On a phone, tap Enable live compass to make the rose turn with your device. iPhones ask for motion and orientation access first.
01 · Real-world fits
Common use cases
- Finding which way to face from home toward a distant city, then converting it to a magnetic bearing for a handheld compass
- Aiming a directional ham radio or TV antenna toward a station in another town
- Finding the qibla, the great-circle direction toward Mecca, from any city
- Looking up the local magnetic declination before an orienteering or backcountry trip
- Showing a student why flights from New York to London set off northeast instead of due east
02 · The honest pitch
Why Compass Heading Calculator?
It gives you both ends of the route: the bearing you start on and the one you arrive on, which can differ by tens of degrees on long routes. Declination comes from the current World Magnetic Model (WMM2025), computed in your browser for today's date. City search checks a built-in list of 537 cities first and only asks OpenStreetMap's Nominatim service for things that list doesn't have, like a street address.
03 · Edge cases