Steps to Distance Calculator

This calculator turns the step count from your phone, pedometer or fitness watch into distance in kilometers and miles. Enter your steps and the length of one step in meters, and it multiplies the two.

The result is only as good as the step length you enter. A measured value from your own walk is far better than a generic average, and your step length changes with speed: brisk walking steps are longer than strolling steps, and running steps are longer still. If you track a mix of walking and running, convert each part separately.

Trackers that use GPS outdoors measure distance directly; this calculation is most useful indoors, on a treadmill, or with a basic pedometer. To turn the same steps into energy used, try the steps to calories calculator, and to see how long a walk will take at a given speed, use the walking pace calculator.

In gait science a step is one foot's movement and a stride is two steps (left plus right). Many apps and this calculator's input label call the distance per step "stride length" — enter the length of a single step.

When you cannot measure it, a common estimate for walking is step length ≈ 0.413 × height for women and 0.415 × height for men. This page also serves searches for a step length calculator and a steps to miles calculator: the same relationship works backwards, step length = distance ÷ steps.

Estimated with step length ≈ 0.414 × height, the midpoint of the common male and female estimates. Your measured figure may differ by 10% or more.

• Known-distance method (most accurate): walk a measured distance at your normal pace — a 400 m running track lap is ideal — and count your steps. Divide the distance by the steps. 400 m in 540 steps gives 0.74 m.
• Ten-step method: mark a starting point, walk 10 normal steps, measure the distance from the start line to the same point on your heel, and divide by 10.
• Measure at the speed you use: do it once for walking and again for running if you track both.
• Feet and inches: multiply inches by 0.0254 to get meters (30 in = 0.762 m).

Enter the same figure in your phone or pedometer settings so its distance readout matches.

Wrist-worn trackers count arm swings, so they can miss steps when you push a stroller or hold a rail and add steps for hand movements. Phone pedometers can undercount when the phone is in a bag. Most use a step length guessed from your height unless you set it manually, and some lengthen it automatically as your cadence rises.

On hills and stairs, steps get shorter, so a flat-ground step length overstates distance. For calories rather than distance, the calories burned walking calculator uses your weight, pace and time instead of steps.