Manhattan distance

Manhattan distance is a way to measure how far away two points are from each other. Imagine you are trying to get from point A to point B on a grid. Manhattan distance measures how many squares away the two points are. It only counts how far horizontally and vertically you need to move--like walking around the city blocks of Manhattan. To find the distance, add up the number of changes you need to make in the x (horizontal) direction and the y (vertical) direction. That's the Manhattan distance.