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How to use the Distance calculations in Tableau Desktop 2019.4 and newer.

Tableau 2019.3 lets you calculate the distance between two points directly, no external pre-calculation required.

Tim Ngwena •9 December 2019 •2 min watch •3.9K

Part ofWhat's new in Tableau 2019.4

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The DISTANCE function takes a start point, an end point and a distance unit such as 'kilometers'
Use MAKEPOINT with latitude and longitude to create the start and finish points the function references
Tableau calculates distance 'as the bird flies' — a straight line, so treat it like a radius between two points
You can drag the distance measure onto columns and add trip ID to build a bar chart, then use it as a filter
This removes the need to pre-calculate distances outside of Tableau

0:00One of the great new features in 2019.3 is

0:04the ability to do distance calculations in

0:07Tableau. You'll see here that I've got a

0:10pickup point and a drop off point. And I've

0:12created

0:13these by using the make point function with

0:15the drop off latitude and longitude, and

0:18the

0:18pickup latitude and longitude for the

0:20pickup point. Now what I'd like to do is

0:22calculate

0:23the distance between these two locations.

0:25In order to do this, I need to just create

0:27a new calculation. I'll make this larger so

0:29you can see. And I'll just start typing

0:32distance and you can see there's a new

0:34function in here called distance. If I look

0:36on the

0:37right hand side here, I'm actually able to

0:39see that what I need to do is reference the

0:42start, the finish and then the distance

0:44unit in kilometers. So let's start by

0:47bringing

0:47the pickup point. You can also just type

0:49this out. So if I just type in drop off

0:52point,

0:52you'll see that Tableau auto completes. I

0:55hit a comma and then in single speech marks

0:58,

0:58I'll just put kilometers for the units that

0:59I need. I'll then just say distance in

1:05kilometers.

1:05Now one thing to note is that Tableau will

1:08calculate the distance as the bird flies.

1:11So it will basically draw a straight line

1:13from one location to the next location. So

1:15think

1:15of this more like a radius from start to

1:18finish. I hit apply. And now you'll see I

1:21have distance

1:21units. To visualize this, I'll bring this

1:23into columns and then you'll see the total

1:27distance

1:28from all my data points. And then if I

1:30bring the trip ID for this taxi data, you

1:33'll see that I

1:34actually get a bar chart showing all the

1:37distances. If I then add this as a filter

1:40and then also just put it in detail,

1:51I can start working with this like I would

1:53any other data set and I can start

1:56filtering

1:56various trips in and out of my data set. So

2:00it's a really powerful feature to be able

2:02to do this

2:02directly in Tableau. Typically, you'd have

2:05to pre-calculate these outside of Tableau.

2:07You can actually see in my data, I have

2:09trip miles already pre-calculated,

2:11but this comes from the taxi directly. That

2:14's it.

Rollup

Tableau's DISTANCE function calculates the distance between two spatial points directly in a calculated field, removing the need to pre-calculate distances outside Tableau before importing data.

The example uses taxi trip data with pickup and drop-off coordinates. Latitude/longitude pairs have already been turned into spatial points using MAKEPOINT, which the DISTANCE function then references.

The Breakdown

Create points with MAKEPOINT first 0:00

Before you can measure distance, you need two spatial points to measure between. Build these using MAKEPOINT fed with a latitude and longitude field pair — one for the start location, one for the end.
Write the DISTANCE calculation 0:20

Create a new calculated field and start typing 'distance' — Tableau will surface the DISTANCE function. It needs three arguments: a start point, a finish point, and a unit.
Reference the two points and set units 0:42

Type or autocomplete the names of your start and end point fields, separated by a comma, then specify the distance unit in single quotes, such as 'kilometers'.
Understand it's a straight-line distance 1:05

Tableau calculates distance 'as the bird flies' — a straight line between the two points, not a routed or road distance. Treat the result more like a radius than an actual travelled path.
Visualise and filter with the result 1:21

Drag the new distance measure onto columns and add an identifying dimension, like a trip ID, to build a bar chart of distances across records. You can also use the distance field as a filter and put it on detail to work with it like any other measure.
Skip external pre-calculation 2:01

This capability means you no longer need to calculate distances outside Tableau before loading your data — even if a dataset already contains a pre-calculated distance field, you can derive it directly from coordinates instead.

Worth Knowing

The distance is a straight-line ('as the bird flies') measurement, not a road or route distance, so it will differ from real-world travel distances.

Use It When

Reach for this when you have latitude/longitude pairs for two locations per record — like pickup/drop-off, store-to-customer, or site-to-site pairs — and need distance as a measure without pre-processing the data elsewhere.

How this Rollup was made provenance & method

A Rollup is drafted by AI from the video's transcript, then reviewed and edited by Tim. Everything used to produce this one is listed below — the model, the exact prompt, and the source video — so the process is transparent and reproducible.

Transcription: On-device — NVIDIA Parakeet v3 for recent videos, OpenAI Whisper large-v3 for earlier ones. The transcript never leaves the machine or gets published.
Drafting: Claude Sonnet 5 in the cloud, from that transcript.
Prompt: The exact Rollup prompt (v2) — the full system prompt, unedited.
Source video: Watch on YouTube
Drafted: 5 July 2026 at 09:38
Reviewed & edited: 5 July 2026 at 09:41 · by Tim Ngwena

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