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I read on wikipedia:
Chaiyaphum is 337 road kilometres northeast of Bangkok.
What's the translation of “road kilometres" in French?
Linguee and translate.google.com suggest "kilomètres de route", however google yields almost no result for that phrase. Is there a better translation?
"Kilomètres de route" is completely correct. As a native French speaker, I use it on a daily basis.
We tend to consider it the normal way to express a distance though, and so usually omit it. The opposite being "kilomètres à vol d'oiseau", is also frequently used.
The expression km de route does exist in French and Google finds many occurences but Chaiyaphum est à 337 km de route au nord-est de Bangkok is not something I would expect to hear from a native French speaker. What would be more common is: Il y a 337 km de route pour aller de Bangkok à Chaiyaphum but it is difficult to place northeast in this sentence.
Here is what I can suggest:
Chaiyaphum se trouve au nord-est de Bangkok, à 337 km par la route.
This is close to what I found here:
La distance entre Bangkok et Chaiyaphum est de 282 km. La distance par la route est de 337.5 km.
Suggestion from Gilles Thésée:
“kilomètres par la route”, as opposed to “kilomètres à vol d’oiseau” (“as the crow flies”)
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22kilom%C3%A8tres+par+la+route%22 does return a few results (but not that many).
