In metric space theory and Riemannian geometry, the Riemannian circle (named after Bernhard Riemann) is a great circle equipped with its great-circle distance. In more detail, the term refers to the circle equipped with its intrinsic Riemannian metric of a compact 1-dimensional manifold of total length 2, as opposed to the extrinsic metric obtained by restriction of the Euclidean metric to the unit circle in the plane. Thus, the distance between a pair of points is defined to be the length of the shorter of the two arcs into which the circle is partitioned by the two points.