Google Maps doesn’t draw circles. There’s no option to drop a point and draw “everything within 10 miles”. Its help only explains how to measure distance, and the My Maps help how to draw lines and freehand shapes. For an exact radius, the practical route is to draw it with another tool and, if you want to see it in Google, open it in Google Earth. Here’s the quick Google Maps trick, the proper way, and an example with numbers.
The quick trick: “Measure distance”
If you only need to know whether one place falls inside a radius, Google Maps is enough:
- Right-click the center (your home, the store, the school) and choose “Measure distance”.
- Click the other place. The card at the bottom shows the total distance in a straight line.
- If it’s less than your radius, it’s inside. To check another place, click the last point to remove it and click the next one.
On a phone it works the same way: touch and hold the center, choose “Measure distance”, move the map until the black circle is over the other place and tap “Add point”.
It’s fine for two or three checks, but it doesn’t show you the circle or what’s inside it.
Draw the radius properly, step by step
On Mapsfera’s radius map:
- Find the center by address or name, or tap the map. You can also use your location.
- Set the radius with the slider, from 1 to 500 miles, or with the 5, 10, 25, 50 and 100 shortcuts. If you prefer kilometers, switch units in the map settings.
- Read the circle’s area and perimeter below the map.
- Add more circles if you need them (up to five), for example to compare the reach of two locations.
- Save or share: the circle is stored in the page address, so copying the link is enough. You can also download it as a PNG image or as a KML or GeoJSON file.
The circle is calculated on the real shape of the Earth (an ellipsoid), not on the flat map. With big radii, the web map’s projection makes the circle look stretched toward the pole; it’s the map that distorts, not the circle.
Example: 10 miles around the Colorado State Capitol
With the center on the Capitol steps in Denver and a 10-mile radius:
| Measurement | Value |
|---|---|
| Area | 314.16 sq mi |
| Perimeter | 62.83 mi |
| With a 20-mile radius | 1,256.6 sq mi (four times as much) |
| With a 50-mile radius | 7,854 sq mi |
The rule worth remembering: double the radius and the area goes up four times. A 10-mile circle already covers a bit more than the land area of all five boroughs of New York City, about 300 square miles.
What falls inside the radius
The circle is often just the first step. With the same center and radius, which carry over from one tool to the next:
- ZIP codes in a radius: every ZIP code inside the circle, on the map and ready to export to CSV for a spreadsheet or an ad campaign.
- Cities in a radius: the cities and towns inside, listed by distance from the center.
- Population in a radius: how many people live inside, estimated from Census data.
It’s how you decide a delivery area, a sales territory, which towns a school bus route covers, or how many people a new store can reach.
See it in Google Earth
If you want the circle inside Google, Google Earth opens the KML file you download from Mapsfera:
- On Mapsfera’s radius map, press the download button and choose KML.
- Open Google Earth on your computer.
- On the home screen, at the bottom left, click “Open local KML editor”, then “Open KML from device”.
- Pick the file you downloaded. The circle shows up with its center and its name.
According to Google’s documentation, local KML files opened this way are only visible on that device and you don’t need to sign in. To keep it in a Google Earth project, you do need your account.
What about My Maps? It imports KML files too (“Import”, on a new layer), though its help warns that some things won’t import, such as combined geometries. Mapsfera’s radius KML stores the circle and its center as two separate features, a polygon and a point, so My Maps can read it.
Radius or travel time?
A radius measures in a straight line, “as the crow flies”. By road, 10 miles in a straight line can easily be 15 or 20 miles of driving, especially around lakes, rivers or mountains. If what matters is how long it takes, use a drive time map, which draws how far you can get in the time you choose, by car, bike or on foot.