How far is st louis from chicago

Q: How far is St. Louis from Chicago by plane?

Flight distance from Chicago to St Louis (Chicago OHare International Airport – St. Louis Lambert International Airport) is 258 miles / 415 kilometers / 224 nautical miles. Estimated flight time is 59 minutes.

The distance from Saint Louis, Missouri to Chicago, Illinois is:

296 miles / 476 km driving262 miles / 422 km flying

Plan your trip at

For a quick answer, use MileageCalc.com to get the Saint Louis to Chicago distance.

More trip calculations

Distance from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL

The total driving distance from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL is 296 miles or 476 kilometers.

The total straight line flight distance from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL is 262 miles.

This is equivalent to 422 kilometers or 228 nautical miles.

Your trip begins in Saint Louis, Missouri. It ends in Chicago, Illinois.

Your flight direction from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL is Northeast (30 degrees from North).

The distance calculator helps you figure out how far it is to get from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL. It does this by computing the straight line flying distance ("as the crow flies") and the driving distance if the route is drivable. It uses all this data to compute the total travel mileage.

Distance calculator

Travelmath helps you find distances based on actual road trip directions, or the straight line flight distance. You can get the distance between cities, airports, states, countries, or zip codes to figure out the best route to travel to your destination. Compare the results to the straight line distance to determine whether it's better to drive or fly. The database uses the latitude and longitude of each location to calculate distance using the great circle distance formula. The calculation is done using the Vincenty algorithm and the WGS84 ellipsoid model of the Earth, which is the same one used by most GPS receivers. This gives you the flying distance "as the crow flies." Find your flight distances quickly to estimate the number of frequent flyer miles you'll accumulate. Or ask how far is it between cities to solve your homework problems. You can lookup U.S. cities, or expand your search to get the world distance for international trips. You can also print out pages with a travel map.

The driving distance from Chicago, Illinois to Saint Louis, Missouri is:

296 miles / 476 km

Plan your road trip at

Map of driving directions from Chicago, IL to Saint Louis, MO

View a map with driving directions using your preferred map provider: Google Maps, Bing Maps, or MapQuest. You can use DriveDistance.com to get the full driving distance from Chicago to Saint Louis with directions.

More trip calculations

The total driving distance from Chicago, IL to Saint Louis, MO is 296 miles or 476 kilometers.

Your trip begins in Chicago, Illinois. It ends in Saint Louis, Missouri.

If you are planning a road trip, you might also want to calculate the total driving time from Chicago, IL to Saint Louis, MO so you can see when you'll arrive at your destination.

You can also calculate the cost of driving from Chicago, IL to Saint Louis, MO based on current local fuel prices and an estimate of your car's best gas mileage.

If you're meeting a friend, you might be interested in finding the city that is halfway between Chicago, IL and Saint Louis, MO.

Planning to fly a plane instead? You might be more interested in calculating the straight line distance to fly from Chicago, IL to Saint Louis, MO.

Driving distance calculator

Travelmath helps you find driving distances based on actual directions for your road trip. You can get the distance between cities, airports, states, countries, or zip codes to figure out the best route to travel to your destination. Combine this information with the fuel cost tool to find out how much it will cost you to drive the distance, or compare the results to the straight line distance to determine whether it's better to drive or fly. You can print out pages with a travel map.

Driving non-stop from Chicago to St. Louis

How far is St. Louis from Chicago? Here's the quick answer if you are able to make this entire trip by car without stopping.

Nonstop drive: 296 miles or 476 km

Driving time: 4 hours, 28 minutes

Realistically, you'll probably want to add a buffer for rest stops, gas, or food along the way. To get a better idea of how long this trip would really be, scroll down to calculate how many hours it would take if you drive with stops.

Flying non-stop from Chicago to St. Louis

Now let's assume you have a private jet and you can fly in the fastest possible straight line between Chicago, Illinois and Saint Louis, Missouri. Because of the curvature of the Earth, the shortest distance is actually the "great circle" distance, or "as the crow flies" which is calculated using an iterative Vincenty formula.

Flight distance: 262 miles or 422 km

Flight time: 47 minutes

The straight line flight distance is 34 miles less than driving on roads, which means the driving distance is roughly 1.1x of the flight distance.

Your plane flies much faster than a car, so the flight time is about 1/4th of the time it would take to drive.

This is a relatively short flight in a private plane, but you might be planning to book a commercial flight. In that case, your travel time would really need to include how many minutes to get to your local airport, wait for security, board and taxi on the runway, land at the other airport, and get to your destination. Scroll down to see a more realistic calculation that takes into account all these factors to get a more accurate estimate of your actual flight time.

Chicago to St. Louis road trip

Let's say you're actually planning a road trip to St. Louis, and you want to stop along the way to rest. If it's a real road trip, you might want to check out interesting stops along the way, eat at great restaurants, and maybe even find a hotel to stay overnight. That's what Trippy is perfect for, helping you figure out travel plans in detail.

Based on the length of this trip, we think you could spread out this fun road trip over more than one day.

Road trip: 2 days of driving

With the full itinerary planned out, we can estimate your total travel time for this trip.

Travel time: 5.5 hours on the road with 1 overnight

Itinerary

Start in Chicago.

Drive for about 1 hour, then stop in Morris and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 47 minutes then stop in Pontiac and stay for 1 hour. Drive for 46 minutes then stop in Bloomington (Illinois). Stay overnight.

The next day, drive for about 1 hour, then stop in Springfield (Illinois) and stay for about 1 hour. Next, drive for another 52 minutes then stop in Carlinville and stay for 1 hour.

Finally, drive for about 1 hour and arrive in St. Louis.

To see all the details on this itinerary, including recommended restaurants, hotels, and things to do along the way, check out the full road trip planner:

Chicago to St. Louis airports and flights

In the quick calculation above, we assumed you had a private plane and just wanted to know the time in the air from city to city. But for most of us, we're going to be flying on a commercial airline (whether it's first class or coach). So that means we really need to account for all the extra travel time getting to the airport, waiting for our flight, and making it to the destination.

To give you a better estimate of real-life travel, we've put together a flight itinerary with actual airports. Eventually you'll be able to customize this plan, choosing your own airports and flights. But for now, here's an example we've selected to give you an idea of how traveling might work between airports.

Departure airport: Chicago O'Hare International Airport (ORD)

Arrival airport: Lambert-St. Louis International Airport (STL)

With the airports selected, we can estimate the travel time to and from the airport, based on how far the airport is from downtown.

Getting to the airport: 47 minutes

Getting to your destination: 36 minutes

Now finally, let's look at an actual flight from ORD to STL on American Airlines and figure out how long it would take to fly including take-off and landing, and time to taxi on the runway.

Commercial flight time: 1 hour, 2 minutes

So now we can finally get an idea of the total travel time from Chicago to St. Louis including time spent getting to/from the airports, an estimated wait time of 2 hours at the airport for TSA security lines and waiting at the gate, and the actual flight itself.

Total travel time: 4 hours

To see the details on this flight plan, including recommended airports, airline, and route, check out the flight planner:

How far is it the other way?

The distance is the same either way if you're flying a straight line (or driving the same roads back and forth). But for a real trip, there can be plenty of differences so go ahead and check the reverse directions to get the distance from St. Louis to Chicago, or go to the main page to calculate the distance between cities.

If you happen to know Chicago, don't forget to help other travelers and answer some questions about Chicago!

How long is the car ride from St. Louis to Chicago?

The direct drive from Saint Louis to Chicago is 298 mi (479 km), and should have a drive time of 4 hrs 31 mins in normal traffic.

How far is St. Louis from Chicago by plane?

Flight distance from Chicago to St Louis (Chicago O'Hare International Airport – St. Louis Lambert International Airport) is 258 miles / 415 kilometers / 224 nautical miles. Estimated flight time is 59 minutes.

How far is St. Louis from Chicago by plane hours?

The flight time from Chicago to St. Louis is 1 hour, 11 minutes.

How far is St. Louis and Chicago?

The total driving distance from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL is 296 miles or 476 kilometers. The total straight line flight distance from Saint Louis, MO to Chicago, IL is 262 miles. This is equivalent to 422 kilometers or 228 nautical miles.