You may have heard someone use 5,000 feet as an estimate of distance. However, visualizing that distance can be challenging if you don’t have a frame of reference. Learning about some examples of 5,000 feet can make picturing that distance easier.

How many miles is 5,000 feet?

A mile is equal to 5,280 feet. This means that 5,000 feet is less than 300 feet short of a mile. A typical lap on an outdoor track is 400 meters when measured from the inside lane. One mile is right around 1,610 meters, so that means that four laps on an outdoor track are just under 1 mile. This means that four laps around a track are right around 5,000 feet.

4 Laps around an outdoor track is about 5000 feet.

14 Football Fields

Football fields are easy for most people to visualize. A football field is exactly 360 feet long and 160 feet wide. If you compare 5,000 feet to the length of a football field, you’ll find that you would need about 14 football fields to make 5,000 feet.

5 Cruise Ships

Cruise ships are a great way to compare 5,000 feet because they’re easy to visualize, and they’re very large. An average cruise ship is about 1,000 feet long. This means you would need only five cruise ships to make 5,000 feet, so if you can picture a large marina with five cruise ships in the area, you can easily visualize 5,000 feet.

9 Washington Monuments

The Washington Monument is a familiar sight for most people living in the United States. This monument, which is located in Washington, D.C., is a tall, slender monument made of granite, marble, and gneiss. The monument seems to tower over the city, but in fact, it’s only about 554.5 feet tall. This means you would need right around 9 of these monuments to make 5,000 feet.

16 Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty is another easily recognizable United States landmark. It’s much shorter than the Washington Monument, standing at about 305 feet tall. You would need a little more than 16 Statue of Liberties, stacked together, to make 5,000 feet.

2.8 Empire State Building

The Empire State Building is one of the tallest buildings in the United States. It stands 1,250 feet tall, not including the tip, and 1,454 feet tall if you include the tip. This means you would need four Empire State Buildings to achieve a height of 5,000 feet if you don’t include the tip, and about three and a half of the same building if you do include the tip.

Although it might be one of the most recognizable buildings in the U.S., the Empire State Building isn’t the tallest in the United States. The tallest building in the U.S. is One World Trade Center, which is 1,776 feet tall. You would only need about 2.8 of these buildings to reach 5,000 feet.

340 Cars

Cars are easy to visualize, so they’re a great way to visualize a distance. On average, a car is about 14.7 feet long. Vans, SUVs, and trucks are often a bit longer than this, while sedans are a bit shorter. On average, however, if you parked cars end to end, you would need to park about 340 cars in a straight line to reach a distance of 5,000 feet.

You can also compare 5,000 feet to a bus. The average bus is 40 feet long, so you would need to line up 125 buses to get to 5,000 feet.

5 Eiffel Towers

The Eiffel Tower is another very recognizable landmark. The Eiffel Tower, which is located in Paris, France, is about 1,060 feet tall. You would need to stack five Eiffel Towers together to achieve a height of just over 5,000 feet.