Why is Sydney to Lisbon so much further than Sydney to Reykjavik (Iceland)?

Question

Sydney to Lisbon: 18,166km

Sydney to Reykjavik: 16,605km

By looking at a globe or map, this makes absolutely no sense…

In: Physics

Answer 1

The fastest way from Sydney to Reyjavik is fly [straight up through Japan, through the north pole, and down to Iceland](https://www.distance.to/Reykjavik/Sydney). On a globe, that’s easier to see. It’s hard to tell that that’s the fastest route on a rectangular map that stretches out the north pole from a point to an entire side of the map and distorts the size of Europe and Russia.

That route is shorter than the Lisbon route that goes across the Indian Ocean, Middle East, and Mediterranean.