This post by Greg Sterling this AM is a good reminder to tell you about one of my favorite features on Live Maps – Distance and Area calculations. If you ever wanted to know how far it is between 2 cities or what the area of the surface of a given lake is, Live Maps drawing tools make it really easy.

Even without drawing you can calculate directions to get the approximate drive time and distance between any 2 points by right clicking and choosing ‘Drive From…’ and ‘Drive to…’. Live maps has intercity vector map data for just about everywhere on Earth, including places it doesn’t have detailed city streets for.

But you can tailor the trail by using the Collections –> Open Your Collections  menu to draw your own lines or shapes. Whether it is a simple 2 point line or a complex closed polygon, Live Maps will show you the distance and area/perimeter respectively. Here is Greg’s ‘Crow Flies’ distance from Haifa to Sfat. 

And here is a Polygon drawn around the nearby Sea of Galilee showing that it is 63.33 Square Miles. If you sign in with your Live ID you can save your drawings in the cloud making them easy to share with others without the need for really long URL’s.