  We present new tradeoffs between space and query-time for exact distance
oracles in directed weighted planar graphs. These tradeoffs are almost optimal
in the sense that they are within polylogarithmic, sub-polynomial or
arbitrarily small polynomial factors from the na\"{\i}ve linear space, constant
query-time lower bound. These tradeoffs include: (i) an oracle with space
$\tilde{O}(n^{1+\epsilon})$ and query-time $\tilde{O}(1)$ for any constant
$\epsilon>0$, (ii) an oracle with space $\tilde{O}(n)$ and query-time
$\tilde{O}(n^{\epsilon})$ for any constant $\epsilon>0$, and (iii) an oracle
with space $n^{1+o(1)}$ and query-time $n^{o(1)}$.

Data Structures and Algorithms