Distance and displacement are commonly confused terms in physics that are important to get correct. Distance is a scalar quantity , the total distance traveled by an object; displacement is a vector quantity , the shortest path in a straight line between the starting position and final position.
The primary difference between distance and displacement is that distance is the actual length of the path covered by someone or something, but displacement is the length of the shortest route between the starting and ending points.
Distance is a scalar quantity that refers to how much ground an object has covered during its motion. Displacement is a vector quantity that refers to how far out of place an object is ; it is the object's overall change in position.