In this tutorial, we will show you how to calculate the distance between two locations geolocated by using latitude and longitude in C#. This distance calculation uses the Spherical Law of Cosines, which uses trigonometry to measure the curvature of the earth, to accurately measure the distances on the Earth.

using System;
private double distance(double lat1, double lon1, double lat2, double lon2, char unit) {
  if ((lat1 == lat2) && (lon1 == lon2)) {
    return 0;
  }
  else {
    double theta = lon1 - lon2;
    double dist = Math.Sin(deg2rad(lat1)) * Math.Sin(deg2rad(lat2)) + Math.Cos(deg2rad(lat1)) * Math.Cos(deg2rad(lat2)) * Math.Cos(deg2rad(theta));
    dist = Math.Acos(dist);
    dist = rad2deg(dist);
    dist = dist * 60 * 1.1515;
    if (unit == 'K') {
      dist = dist * 1.609344;
    } else if (unit == 'N') {
      dist = dist * 0.8684;
    }
    return (dist);
  }
}

//:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
//::  This function converts decimal degrees to radians             :::
//:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
private double deg2rad(double deg) {
  return (deg * Math.PI / 180.0);
}

//:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
//::  This function converts radians to decimal degrees             :::
//:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
private double rad2deg(double rad) {
  return (rad / Math.PI * 180.0);
}

Console.WriteLine(distance(32.9697, -96.80322, 29.46786, -98.53506, "M"));
Console.WriteLine(distance(32.9697, -96.80322, 29.46786, -98.53506, "K"));
Console.WriteLine(distance(32.9697, -96.80322, 29.46786, -98.53506, "N"));

The code above creates the function named distance to calculate the distance between two locations. It implies the simple spherical law of cosines that gives well-conditioned results down to distances as small as a few meters on the Earth’s surface. The distance function makes use of the spherical law of cosines formula cos c = cos a cos b + sin a sin b cos C and derived into the distance calculation.

Parameters that are passed to the distance function are:
lat1, lon1 = Latitude and Longitude of point 1 in decimal degrees
lat2, lon2 = Latitude and Longitude of point 2 in decimal degrees
unit = the unit you desire for results where ‘M’ is the statute miles (default), ‘K’ is kilometers and ‘N’ is nautical miles