Draw a radius on a map

How to draw a radius on a map

1. Find your centre point. Type an address, town or landmark into the search box, or simply pan and zoom the map to the spot you want.
2. Click to place the centre. With the radius tool selected, click the map once. A circle appears straight away.
3. Set the exact distance. Type the radius in the panel and pick the unit: kilometres, miles, metres, feet or nautical miles. The circle redraws instantly and the panel shows its area.
4. Add more rings if you need them. Click again to add another circle, or tick concentric rings to draw 5, 10 and 25 km bands around the same point in one go.
5. Style and label it. Choose a colour, fill opacity and outline, and give the circle a label such as "30-minute delivery zone".
6. Share, embed or export. Press Share for a public link or an embed code. Owners of any data layer can also export the circles as GeoJSON, KML, Shapefile and more.

What a radius map is great for

• Delivery and service areas – show customers exactly where you deliver or how far a technician will travel.
• Catchment and market analysis – draw a 5 km ring around a store and count the schools, supermarkets or competitors inside it.
• Real estate and relocation – compare what is within walking distance of two homes or offices.
• Event and emergency planning – mark exclusion zones, evacuation distances or the reach of a siren.
• Travel planning – see which towns sit within a two-hour drive radius of your accommodation.
• Teaching and research – visualise distance decay, sampling radii or the range of a radio transmitter.

See what is inside the circle

A circle on its own is useful; a circle with the right places in it answers questions. Add a built-in data layer – for example supermarkets, schools or hospitals for a country – and then use Tools → Points in polygon to count how many fall inside each radius. Every map can use two data layers free, so a quick catchment study costs nothing.

Tips for accurate circles

• mapbow draws geodesic circles – they stay correct at any latitude, so a 100 km ring in Norway is just as accurate as one in Singapore, even though it looks slightly oval on a flat web map.
• Need a buffer around a road or a whole suburb rather than a single point? Use the Buffer tool on any line or polygon instead.
• Drag the centre handle to move a circle; drag the edge handle to resize it by eye, then fine-tune the number.
• Switch the device preview to Mobile before you share, so you know the labels read well on a phone.

Open the radius tool full screen

Related tools and guides

• Step-by-step guide: how to draw a radius on a map
• Distance calculator – measure between two or more points
• Area calculator – measure any shape in km², acres or hectares
• Territory map maker – turn circles into sales or service territories