Distances from Knoxville, TN to nearby and major US cities
Drive times and estimated fuel costs from Knoxville, TN to the towns around it and to the major cities most people head for. Pick any row for the full route.
Knoxville, TN sits in Tennessee, on New York time, at 35.96° north and 83.92° west. The nearest place of any size is Farragut, TN, about 19 miles away — roughly 30 min of driving. 4 other towns of size are within an hour's drive.
Counting only places above twenty thousand people, 65 are within three hours' driving of Knoxville, TN and 258 within six — which is a better measure of how connected a town is than its position on a map. The nearest city of real size is Lexington-Fayette, KY, about 171 miles out.
The two lists below answer different questions. The first is what is physically close, which is what you want for an errand or a day out. The second is the major cities people actually drive to from here, which is usually a longer trip and a different kind of plan. Every figure is an estimated road distance rather than a routed one, and every drive time assumes free-flowing traffic with no allowance for a stop — how the estimate works. For a pair that is not listed here, the calculator will work out any two US cities.
Which way the driving goes from Knoxville, TN
Reachable places are rarely spread evenly around a town, and they are not around Knoxville, TN. Of everything above twenty thousand people within three hours' drive, the largest share — 28 of 65 — lies to the south, with 11 to the west. Only 3 sit to the northeast. That asymmetry is usually geography rather than road building: coastline, a state line, mountains or simply empty country in one direction and settlement in another.
20 of those places are in Tennessee and 45 are across a state line, which matters more than the mileage does. Speed limits, phone rules and what you may do at a red light are all set state by state, so a drive of the same length can be governed by two sets of rules or by one. The state-by-state differences are set out separately.
The major-city list below spans a wide range: Lexington, KY is about 166 miles out, roughly 2 hr 46 min of driving, while Richmond, VA is around 434 miles — a different order of trip entirely, and one to plan in stages rather than as a day. All 10 routes below have a page of their own, with the towns along the way and how flying compares.
One thing none of these figures account for: the distance is the same in both directions but the drive often is not. A route that climbs on the way out descends on the way back, rush hour is in one direction in the morning and the other in the evening, and a mountain pass can be open one way and closed the other in winter. The estimate here is symmetrical because the road is; the day is not. For a long haul out of Knoxville, TN, the road safety guides cover the part the mileage leaves out.
Closest cities to Knoxville, TN
- Farragut, TN 19 mi · 30 min
- Maryville, TN 20 mi · 31 min
- Oak Ridge, TN 24 mi · 38 min
- Morristown, TN 48 mi · 57 min
- Cleveland, TN 89 mi · 1 hr 47 min
- Asheville, NC 93 mi · 1 hr 52 min
- Kingsport, TN 100 mi · 2 hr
- Cookeville, TN 104 mi · 2 hr 4 min
- Johnson City, TN 105 mi · 2 hr 6 min
- East Chattanooga, TN 113 mi · 2 hr 15 min
Major cities from Knoxville, TN
- Lexington, KY 166 mi · 2 hr 46 min
- Atlanta, GA 180 mi · 3 hr
- Nashville, TN 186 mi · 3 hr 6 min
- Charlotte, NC 209 mi · 3 hr 29 min
- Louisville, KY 218 mi · 3 hr 38 min
- Winston-Salem, NC 239 mi · 3 hr 59 min
- Cincinnati, OH 257 mi · 4 hr 17 min
- Durham, NC 326 mi · 5 hr 26 min
- Memphis, TN 405 mi · 6 hr 26 min
- Richmond, VA 434 mi · 6 hr 53 min