You need to set the `ellipsoidalMode` to `True`: distance.setEllipsoidalMode(True) And then you might need to set the ellipsoid over which QGIS will perform calculations, e.g., WGS84: distance.setEllipsoid('WGS84') Now you can measure the distance once again: m = distance.measureLine(point1, point2) Which will give you ~322.475m.