How far is Longbourn from Meryton?

Longbourn is one mile from Meryton in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Longbourn is the Bennet family’s estate in Hertfordshire, while Meryton is the nearby market town where the Bennet sisters shop, visit friends, and encounter the militia officers. The short distance makes Meryton a regular part of the family’s social life. The younger Bennet sisters visit it frequently, and Elizabeth often walks between the two places.

This distance also helps explain the novel’s geography. Longbourn is close enough for ordinary errands and social calls but still functions as a country residence separate from the town. The nearby locations of Netherfield and Lucas Lodge keep many early events within the same small neighbourhood.

Readers sometimes encounter different distances in adaptations, maps, or discussions of the fictional Hertfordshire landscape. Those variations reflect attempts to visualize Austen’s invented geography. The novel itself gives the direct measurement: one mile from Longbourn to Meryton. It is a literary distance rather than a precisely mappable modern route.