Helsinki to Ankara
The shortest flight from Helsinki, Finland to Ankara, Türkiye crosses 4 countries in between.
The route, in flight order
- Finland
- 1Estonia
- 2Latvia
- 3Belarus
- 4Ukraine
- ≈ 550 km of water
- Türkiye
Numbers give the flight order: where the route first enters each country. In the game, one point per country, plus an in-order stamp for each country you name right after the one before it on the route.
Legs in proportion to distance. Each leg includes the short water crossings and brief re-entries folded into it, so it can be longer than the land figures in the notes.
Flight notes
The shortest way from Helsinki to Ankara is a great circle 2,317 km long (measured on a spherical Earth), and it crosses four countries between Finland and Türkiye: Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine. Of the countries in between, the route spends longest over Ukraine, 566 km. 27% of the flight is over water, the longest open-water stretch 550 km. It leaves Helsinki on a heading of 163° (south).
How this was checked
Great circle on a spherical Earth sampled every 2 km (d3-geo) against Natural Earth 1:50m and again 1:10m borders: same countries, same order, each answer crossed for 40 km or more outside Natural Earth's disputed areas with one continuous crossing of at least 25 km; re-derived independently (own slerp, planar ray casting, 1:10m) by verify.mjs. Endpoint coordinates: Wikipedia vs Natural Earth populated places agree within 0.8 km.
Sources: Natural Earth 1:50m Admin 0 countries (public domain) · world-atlas 2.0.2 (Natural Earth 1:50m and 1:10m as TopoJSON) · Helsinki - Wikipedia (coordinates) · Ankara - Wikipedia (coordinates)
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