Sacramento · the midpoint
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California. The county seat of Sacramento County, it is located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in the Sacramento Valley. Read more →
Meet halfway between Phoenix and Portland
The fair place to meet is Sacramento, CA — the city closest to the midpoint of Phoenix and Portland. From the farther side that’s about 13 hr 18 min of driving.
Recommended midpoint
Sacramento, CA
From Phoenix
13 hr 18 min
634 mi to Sacramento
From Portland
10 hr 8 min
483 mi to Sacramento
Portland has the shorter trip; the split is off by about 3 hr 10 min. The alternatives below can even it out. Phoenix and Portland are about 1,005 miles apart.
More meetups from Phoenix
Meeting in Sacramento
Phoenix and Portland are about 1,005 miles apart by road. Split the difference and you arrive near Sacramento, the city closest to the halfway point between them. That puts roughly 13 hr 18 min of driving on the Phoenix side and 10 hr 8 min on the Portland side — the fairest single meeting point among the cities near the middle.
Over this distance most people will fly rather than drive the whole way. Sacramento still makes a fair, central place for Phoenix and Portland to converge, splitting the travel instead of asking one side to cross the country.
If Sacramento doesn't have what you're after, Las Vegas and San Jose are also close to the midpoint and worth a look — each keeps the drive reasonably balanced between Phoenix and Portland.
About the cities
Phoenix
Phoenix is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, Phoenix is the fifth-most populous city in the United States and the most populous state capital. Read more →
Portland
Portland is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Located in the Pacific Northwest at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, it is the 28th-most populous city in the United States, sixth-most populous on the West Coast, and… Read more →
City descriptions adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA); photos via Wikimedia Commons, credited above.
Questions
- Where is the halfway point between Phoenix and Portland?
- Sacramento, CA is closest to the geographic midpoint, which makes it the fairest place to meet.
- How far apart are they?
- About 1,005 miles by road.
- How long is the drive to meet in the middle?
- Roughly 13 hr 18 min from the farther city to Sacramento.
Estimates use straight-line distance and typical road speeds; real drive times vary with route and traffic.