Computational experiments have shown that LKH is highly effective. Even though the algorithm is approximate, optimal solutions are produced with an impressively high frequency. LKH has produced optimal solutions for all solved problems we have been able to obtain; including a 85,900-city instance (at the time of writing, the largest nontrivial instance solved to optimality). Furthermore, the algorithm has improved the best known solutions for a series of large-scale instances with unknown optima, among these a 1,904,711-city instance.