Distance from Cape Town to Los Angeles
Flying the shortest possible route, Los Angeles lies 16,051 km (9,973 miles, 8,667 nautical miles) from Cape Town — the great-circle distance between their coordinates.
The numbers
- Great-circle distance
- 16,051 km · 9,973 mi · 8,667 nmi
- Initial bearing Cape Town → Los Angeles
- 283° (WNW)
- Initial bearing Los Angeles → Cape Town
- 102° (ESE)
- Nonstop flight (rough estimate)
- ≈ 19 h 32 min
- Time zones
- Cape Town UTC+02:00 · Los Angeles UTC-07:00 (-9 h)
- Sunrise gap today
- 547 min — the sun rises earlier in Cape Town
Flight time is a cruise-speed approximation (no routing/wind); driving distance depends on roads and is typically 20–40% longer than great-circle.
The two cities
- Cape Town
- -33.9258, 18.4232
- Sunrise / sunset today
- 04:36 UTC / 16:44 UTC
- Los Angeles
- 34.0522, -118.2437
- Sunrise / sunset today
- 13:43 UTC / 01:50 UTC
Open in the distance calculator Find the halfway point
Distances here are straight-line (great-circle). Road routes typically run 1.2–1.4× longer — here's why, with the visual.