Understanding Distances in routes.co.za

Distances are always given in kilometers or portion thereof.

There are hundreds of tiny places in South Africa and many possible different routes to reach them. In the documents on this site distances between small places are not always given even if these small places are listed. Small places need not be towns, but could also be landmarks or other routes joining the current route.

Here is how to read the distances. The N1 is taken as example.

N1 example

The listing of a route always starts with the province, in this case the Western Cape . A route may not begin at the center of town. The largest nearby centre on the route is listed first, in this case Cape Town. The distance in the listing after the town name is the distance to the next place on the route where a distance is given explicitly.

Example

Western Cape

• Cape Town CBD 3Km
• Woodstock 2Km
• Maitland 7Km
• Kensington
• N7 2Km

In other words, the distance of 3Km is from the Cape Town CBD to Woodstock, while the distance of 7Km is not from Maitland to Kensington, but from Maitland to the N7 . The 2Km listed after the junction with the N7 is to the next place on the N1 after the N7, namely Goodwood.

Some places have several routes leading from them. The listing is done sequentially and not necessarily in the order in which routes are encountered in places.

For example, the routes R306 and R381 both lead from Beaufort-West, but they are given as separate list items for the sake of consistency, not necessarily practice.

• Beaufort-West 77Km
• R306
• R381

Route listings are not database driven, and presently the order of display cannot be changed. If you start with a route from the opposite direction, the distances should just be reversed in your mind. The first listing above then should be read in this order:

• N7 2Km
• Kensington
• Maitland 7Km
• Woodstock 2Km
• Cape Town CBD 3Km
• Western Cape

The distances now mean the following:

From the N7 it is 7Km to Maitland -- you should ignore the 2Km because it would be from the location mentioned before N7 (in this case Goodwood) to the N7 . From Maitland it is 2Km to Woodstock, and from Woodstock 3Km to the Cape Town CBD.

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