Great Circle Map Globe Logo

Our Globe Spins Over the Poles

Every other mapping app pins the globe to the Earth's axis and treats the poles as the edge of the world. Airplanes don't. Great Circle Map rotates freely in every direction, so you can follow a polar route exactly the way it is flown.

Two airport codes and the route appears, measured leg by leg. Double-tap anywhere for waypoints of your own, as many as the route needs. On iPhone Duo, unfold a bigger workspace and keep the route right beside the globe.

Download Great Circle Map on the App Store Get Great Circle Map on Google Play

iPhone Duo, iPhone, iPad, macOS, and Android

Unfolded Power

Natively designed to extract the full power of the iPhone Duo. Share a map with friends for any routing you can conceive.

The Same Globe on Unfoldables

Every iPhone gets the same globe and the same route tools as iPhone Duo. On regular iPhones Route and Appearance float above the map, Globe, History, and Settings ride in a bar at the bottom, and the globe keeps the whole screen.

A Polar Route Crossing the Arctic on the Globe Airport Search Showing IATA and ICAO Results The Route Panel With Weather at Each Waypoint Custom Numbered Waypoints Across Greenland Leg Distance Labels and the Route Total The Automatic Route History The Route Map Export With a Flat Projection

Built for the Routes Other Mapping Apps Can't Show

Start with an airport, follow a route over the poles, and share the map when it is ready. The globe brings the same route tools to iPhone, iPhone Duo, iPad, and Mac, with controls arranged for each screen.

Free Rotation Over the Poles

Google Maps and the rest fix the globe around the Earth's axis, so a polar route always slides sideways off the top of the screen. Great Circle Map has no fixed axis. Drag straight over either pole and keep going.

Find Any Airport on Earth

Type an IATA code, an ICAO code, or a city name. Every strip with a code is in there, and two airports are all it takes to see the great circle and its distance.

Every Leg Measured

Distance labels ride along each leg, and the running total appears at the top of the globe. Initial bearings appear in the route panel. Units switch between km, nm, and mi anytime.

Waypoints Anywhere on Earth

The map is tappable. Double-tap any point on the globe to create a waypoint there, and double-tap the waypoint again to delete it. There is no limit on how many you add.

Share the Polar Route

A globe is for exploring, and a flat map is for sharing. Create Map unrolls the route into a clean flat image, polar legs and all, with sliders for the size of its points and labels, ready to send or save.

Weather at Every Waypoint

Each waypoint shows current conditions, temperature, and wind in knots, so you know what the air is doing along the whole route.

Routes Remembered

History saves your recent routes automatically. Preview the waypoints and distance, then open the route back on the globe without typing those airports again.

Nothing Tracking You

No analytics, no account, and no ads. Your routes stay on your device, and the only network request the app makes is for the weather.

Native on macOS

Great Circle Map gives the Mac a workspace of its own. The route sidebar sits beside a globe that fills the window, the toolbar switches between the globe and your route history, and an inspector opens on the right for map appearance and waypoint details. One App Store purchase covers iPhone, iPhone Duo, iPad, and Mac.

A Real Mac Workspace

A toolbar, a resizable route sidebar, and an inspector with the map layers, projection, units, and the selected waypoint's details and weather. Click a waypoint to select it, drag rows to reorder, and double-click any airport to add it.

Menus and Shortcuts

Every route command lives in the menu bar with a keyboard shortcut. Undo and redo any edit with ⌘Z and ⇧⌘Z, reverse the route, move waypoints, fit the view, and add a custom waypoint by typing its coordinates.

Export to Any Folder

Create Map renders the route as a flat PNG with its leg distances. Save it wherever you like with the standard file dialog, or send it straight to Mail, Messages, or AirDrop. No photo library access is needed on the Mac.

History With a Preview

Every route with two or more waypoints is saved automatically, up to a hundred. The History workspace searches them, previews a route's waypoints and distance in a side column, and opens it back onto the globe.

Dark, Light, Satellite, or Relief

Four map styles, one tap apart. Dark is the default, a vector map drawn from Natural Earth data in the app's own palette, and Light is the same map as a paper chart. Both show coastlines, borders, and lakes from a distance, and roads and city names appear as you zoom in. Satellite keeps the NASA Blue Marble view from above, and Relief keeps the Natural Earth terrain. The same menu flips the camera between the Normal and flat Ortho projections, and every style ships on Google Play as well as the App Store.

The Newark to Hong Kong Route Over the North Pole in Dark Map Style on iPad Pro The Newark to Hong Kong Route Over the North Pole in Light Map Style on iPad Pro The Newark to Hong Kong Route Over the North Pole in Satellite Map Style on iPad Pro The Newark to Hong Kong Route Over the North Pole in Relief Map Style on iPad Pro

Your Position, Even Over the Ocean

Show My Location stays off until you enable it in Settings. Your device can find your position over the ocean without a network connection. While the app is open, we mark that position with a blue dot on the globe. Show Location, below the compass, turns the globe to your dot. Your position is never saved and never leaves your device.

The Los Angeles (LAX) to Hong Kong (HKG) Route With a Blue Location Dot Over the North Pacific on iPhone

Size the Labels on Your Map

Create Map opens a preview with its own Dark, Light, Satellite, and Relief choices. Three sliders set the size of the waypoint points, the waypoint labels, and the distance labels, and the preview redraws as you drag. A label that would land on another shrinks on its own, so a crowded route still reads cleanly.

Bigger on iPad

Turn iPad wide and the route, History, or Settings can sit beside the globe. Turn upright and Route and Appearance move to the top, with Globe, History, and Settings below. The same waypoints and weather stay ready as the workspace adapts to the window.

The Same Globe on Android

Great Circle Map on Android runs the same globe engine as the iPhone, iPad, and Mac versions, wrapped in a native interface built with Jetpack Compose. Airport search, unlimited double-tap waypoints, leg distances and bearings, weather at every waypoint, automatic route history, and the Create Map export are all here. Navigation follows the iPhone layout, with separate Route and Appearance buttons and a bottom menu for Globe, History, and Settings. Wide windows use a side rail. It needs Android 12 or newer and is on Google Play.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Showing Newark (EWR) to Hong Kong (HKG) Over the North Pole, Unfolded Xiaomi 18 Fold With the Same Globe Beside the Route Column, and Folded Xiaomi 18 Fold Showing Iceland to Canada via Greenland on Its Cover Display
Google Pixel 10 Pro Xiaomi 18 Fold (Open) Xiaomi 18 Fold (Closed)

Learning Works Best Together

It's efficient to read the instructions and start with the basics when you don't know something (although sometimes it's more fun to do things the wrong way first). Our guide walks you through the current controls, from Route and Appearance to sharing a finished route map. See how the workspace adapts across iPhone, iPhone Duo, iPad, and Mac. If you think you know something we don't, please shoot us an email so we can learn something too. We love fixing bugs and adding new features!

Four Devices as Classroom Students, With iPhone and Folded iPhone Duo Holding Hands and iPhone Duo Raising a Hand

Read the Guide

Take the Polar Route

One App Store purchase brings Great Circle Map to iPhone, iPhone Duo, iPad, and Mac. Android is available separately on Google Play.

Download Great Circle Map on the App Store Get Great Circle Map on Google Play