How to Calculate Distance Between two Locations in Android?

We have seen many apps that use Google Maps. These maps are used to indicate places on Google Maps and also we can use this to calculate the distance between two locations. In this article, we will take a look at calculating the distance between two locations in Android. 

What we are going to build in this article? 

We will be building a simple application in which we will be displaying a simple map and on our app launch, we will show a Toast message with a distance between two locations on our Map. Below is the video in which we will get to see what we are going to build in this article. We are going to calculate the distance between Sydney and Brisbane. Note that we are going to implement this project using the Java language. 

Step by Step Implementation

Step 1: Create a New Project

To create a new project in Android Studio please refer to How to Create/Start a New Project in Android Studio. Note that select Java as the programming language. Make sure to select Maps Activity while creating a new Project.

Step 2: Generating an API key for using Google Maps

To generate the API key for Maps you may refer to How to Generate API Key for Using Google Maps in Android. After generating your API key for Google Maps. We have to add this key to our Project. For adding this key in our app navigate to the values folder > google_maps_api.xml file and at line 23 you have to add your API key in the place of YOUR_API_KEY. 

Step 3: Adding a dependency to calculate the distance between two locations

Navigate to the app > Gradle Scripts > build.gradle file and add below dependency in the dependencies section. 

implementation 'com.google.maps.android:android-maps-utils:0.4+'

After adding the below dependency now sync your project. After adding this dependency now move towards the MapsActivity.java file for showing a toast message. 

Step 4: Working with the MapsActivity.java file

Go to the MapsActivity.java file and refer to the following code. Below is the code for the MapsActivity.java file. Comments are added inside the code to understand the code in more detail.

After adding this code. Now run your app and see the output of the app.

Output:

Note: In the Google Developer Console (https://accounts.google.com/v3/signin/identifier?continue=https%3A%2F%2Fconsole.cloud.google.com%2Fapis%2Fdashboard&followup=https%3A%2F%2Fconsole.cloud.google.com%2Fapis%2Fdashboard&ifkv=AdBytiM0x2slbsJ-3QR_4zMJ_ebCmezfTHZNJYDsi5MViJu06wPrjN5-z4Q4tSgm2uOkhWVnIrub_A&osid=1&passive=1209600&service=cloudconsole&flowName=WebLiteSignIn&flowEntry=ServiceLogin&dsh=S117544077%3A1753258326916060), ensure that the "Google Maps Android API v2" is enabled. And also ensure that your API Key exists.