How Far Is Every US State Capital From the Coast?

How far would you have to travel — as the crow flies — from your state capital to reach the coast? We computed the straight-line distance from all 50 US state capitals to the nearest coastline using the same great-circle distance method behind MapBench's distance tools, with capital coordinates from Wikipedia and the Natural Earth 1:10m coastline dataset.

The results hold a few surprises: Denver's nearest coast isn't California or Texas — it's the Gulf of California in Mexico. And for the northern plains capitals, the closest “coast” isn't an ocean at all, but Canada's Hudson Bay.

The 10 state capitals furthest from the coast

The 10 state capitals closest to the coast

Surprising findings

• Denver's nearest coast is in Mexico. At 744.8 miles, the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) in Sonora beats both the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico.
• The Hudson Bay effect. Pierre, Bismarck, Saint Paul and Madison are all closer to Canada's Hudson Bay than to any US ocean coast — Pierre is 924 miles from it and still the most landlocked capital in the nation.
• Rivers count. Several capitals sit near tidal waterways that are part of the coastline dataset: Richmond on the tidal James, Trenton on the tidal Delaware, Albany on the tidal Hudson, and Montpelier — whose nearest “coast” is the St. Lawrence River near Montreal, Canada.
• Phoenix is closer to the ocean than you think. Arizona's capital is just 163.9 miles from the Gulf of California — closer than Atlanta is to the Atlantic (235.7 miles).

All 50 state capitals, ranked closest to furthest

The complete ranked table. Every distance is a straight-line great-circle measurement from the capital's coordinates to the nearest point on the coastline, with the exact water body named per row.

How this was calculated

We took each capital's coordinates from Wikipedia (accessed 2026-10-13), then found the nearest point on the Natural Earth 1:10m coastline and measured the haversine great-circle distance — the same method MapBench's distance tools use. Six results were independently re-verified. The full methodology, sources and limitations are documented alongside the dataset, which is free to cite with attribution to MapBench.

Frequently asked questions

• Which US state capital is furthest from the ocean? Pierre, South Dakota — 924.4 miles (1,487.7 km) from the nearest coastline, which is Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada.
• Which US state capital is closest to the coast? Juneau, Alaska — just 0.3 miles (0.4 km) from the Gastineau Channel shoreline, followed by Boston (0.5 mi) and Olympia, Washington (0.7 mi).
• Are these driving distances? No — these are straight-line (“as the crow flies”) distances. Driving distances would be longer.
• Why do some distances point to rivers or Canada/Mexico? The coastline dataset includes major tidal bays, estuaries and tidal rivers, and “nearest coast” was measured without regard to national borders. Each row names the exact water body.