How far away is Duke from UNC?

The North Carolina Tar Heels and Duke Blue Devils rivalry is certainly the fiercest when it comes to college basketball. These are two blue-blood programs with banners filled with numerous accomplishments over the past century-plus.

In this rivalry, there is not shortage of bad blood or ill will between UNC and Duke either. The fan bases share their animosity routinely, one fan base celebrates when the other loses, and the list goes on. But really, so much of the UNC-Duke rivalry comes down to one thing: proximity.

With both schools occupying space on Tobacco Road in the triangle area of North Carolina, the two schools are just a stone's throw apart from one another. The famous refrain is that UNC and Duke are "separated by just eight miles", something that many fans have heard countless times before.

But how far is Duke actually from UNC? Is it the eight miles we've always heard, or is that a common misnomer? Let's peel back the curtain and get the truth.

How far is Duke from UNC? Campus to campus, Dean Dome to Cameron

Duke is actually 9.8 miles away from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus by way of the roads. The eight miles that we often here would be if you drew a straight line on a map from Duke to UNC, but we all know -- and anyone in the triangle area will surely attest to -- that's not how the roads and highways necessarily work.

What's more interesting is that the two basketball arenas are actually even farther apart than the two campuses. From the Dean E. Smith Center in Chapel Hill to Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham is actually 10.8 miles on the road for the shortest route (though the fastest route according to Google Maps is actually 11.0 miles).

So even if you hear the eight miles between the two schools whenever they play, now you know that's a big misleading. It's going to be almost two miles longer if you hop in the car from one to the other, and another full mile-plus if you're trying to go from the Dean Dome to Cameron.