as the crow flies

Cultural  

1. The most direct route between two places: “From here to Gold Bar, it's only ten miles as the crow flies, but twenty miles by the winding mountain road.”

---

as the crow flies Idioms  

1. In a straight line, by the shortest route, as in It's only a mile as the crow flies, but about three miles by this mountain road. This idiom is based on the fact that crows, very intelligent birds, fly straight to the nearest food supply. [Late 1700s]

---

Example Sentences

We had a house at the top of Mount Washington where, on a clear day, I could see the downtown skyscrapers surrounding my office—five minutes, as the crow flies.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 17, 2025

Paradise is only about 13 miles southeast of Cohasset, as the crow flies.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 1, 2024

"We said that a gold mine in Erzincan, which is on an active fault line and 300m away from the Euphrates River as the crow flies, is very dangerous," Mr Torun said.

From BBC • Feb. 14, 2024

The distance from Seattle to Eugene is virtually identical to that of Seattle to Pullman — roughly 285 miles, not as the crow flies but as the sedan drives.

From Seattle Times • Oct. 12, 2023

Ten miles away as the crow flies, the radio beeped three times in the Crown Victoria of Utah State Trooper Bart Rindlisbacher.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel