# Web Site To Show Radius Around an Area?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-site-to-show-radius-around-an-area/350917
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [April 2, 2006, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-site-to-show-radius-around-an-area/350917 "2006-04-02T04:54:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@inkleberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/inkleberry)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2006, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-site-to-show-radius-around-an-area/350917/1 "2006-04-02T04:54:53Z")
Is there a web site about that would highlight, say, a 20 mile radius around Denver? Basically a mapquest + radius highlight feature?
---
### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2006, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-site-to-show-radius-around-an-area/350917/2 "2006-04-02T10:53:42Z")
I don’t know if there’s a ready-made website that lets you do this (I’m guessing there OUGHT to be – it’s a pretty common need, I imagine – but I just don’t know any offhand). But here are some other options:
- If this is a one-time thing, just save the map as a picture and add a circle yourself using MS Paint or similar. The map should come with a scale and you can just estimate the size.
- You can hack around with the [Maps.com Radius Maps](http://www.maps.com/radiusmaps.aspx) samples. [Maps.com](http://Maps.com) sells custom radius maps, but they provide a free sample using the Maptuit mapping service. If you look up a certain area, you can then view the image’s URL and use it to create a similar map. For example, you can look up a 25-mile radius around Denver, CO. The image URL you get is :
```auto
http://service.maptuit.com/htmlclient/map.cgi?-104.94180,39.72452,300,300,0,268.223333333333,1,Unique,0,Maps.Rad+m+x150,150+-104.94180,39.72452+r40233.5
```
Using this data, we can generate a custom request. The “300,300” is the image size. Let’s make that 1024, 768 for a bigger map (don’t go too big or it’ll refuse to generate a map). The 268.223~ is the zoom size. Let’s make it 100 for a closer look. the r40233.5 is the 25-mile radius in some other unit of measurement (latitude minutes, maybe…? I’m not sure). In any case, let’s divide that by 25 and times the result by 20 to get a 20-mile radius. You end up with:
```auto
http://service.maptuit.com/htmlclient/map.cgi?-104.94180,39.72452,1024,768,0,100,1,Unique,0,Maps.Rad+m+x150,150+-104.94180,39.72452+r32186.8
```
That gets you a [20-mile radius map around Denver, CO](http://service.maptuit.com/htmlclient/map.cgi?-104.94180,39.72452,1024,768,0,100,1,Unique,0,Maps.Rad+m+x150,150+-104.94180,39.72452+r32186.8). If you can’t see the image, copy and paste the link into a new window instead of clicking on it – there might be some sort of referrer check that’s blocking you. You can see also see a saved copy [here](http://i2.tinypic.com/suzv2d.gif), but if all you want is one saved copy, an edited Google/Yahoo/MSN map will probably look better.
- If you’re willing to pay $20, I heard that [Google Earth Plus](http://earth.google.com/earth_plus.html) lets you draw these, but it’s not a website.
- If it possible to make a custom Google Maps hack that draws circles. Here’s an [example](http://xmaps.busmonster.com/documentation.html#Circles), but you have to be somewhat familiar with the Google Maps API and Javascript.