I did a google search for the “geographical center of the us”
I got claims that varied from South Dakota to Arkansas to somewhere else(I forgot).
What’s the dope?
Are we including Alaska and Hawaii?
There are lots of different ways to figure out such a thing, and none of them mean much from a scientific standpoint. For example:
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If the landmass of the US was a solid of uniform thickness, this is the point it would balance at.
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Number 1, but just for the Lower 48
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Number 1, but adding in mass for population figures, including Opal.
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Number 3, but just for the Lower 48
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The point where the line connecting the northernmost point and the southermost point intersects a line connecting the easternmost and westernmost points.
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Number 5, but just for the Lower 48
There’s probably more, and some of these may not make much sense, but there ya go.
Yahoo seems to have the dope on this one. :eek:
The problem is one of definition. Do you include only the lower 48 states, or do you include Alaska and Hawaii, too? Hawaii won’t make much difference, being so small, but Alaska is big and a long way to the northwest, so it will throw your results off beam a bit.
Then, how do you decide what is the “centre”? The most common way seems to be imagining a cut-out map of the country, and finding where it would balance perfectly on the tip of a pencil. Again, depending on how accurate your map is, this could be open to debate.
As far as I can tell, this one near Lebanon, KS is the centre of the USA excluding Alaska and Hawaii (which in any case were not part of the union when it was determined in 1940).
A point in South Dakota claimed the title in 1959, taking AK and HI into account.
Then there’s a spot in North Dakota which is the centre of North America.
Confused yet? 
Not to add to the confusion, but if you include Alaska, then you must also consider that Alaska crosses the 180 degree meridian, and so part of it is actualy East of us, not West.
I don’t see that that makes any difference. We’re after the centre of a landmass, so eastern and western hemispheres are irrelevant.
Here is some more info about the sort of controversy this kind of measurement can cause - a BBC story on the geographic centres of Great Britain, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Ordnace Survey used the “centre of gravity” method, but other methods give results many miles away.
I’ve been to the site in North Dakota, during a road trip. It’s across the road from the Hub Motel. 
Interestingly, our two map books had the geographic centre marked as well, and both of them were diffeent, and neither of them were Rugby, ND.
Agreed. The center will be independent of any particular coordinate system.
But this thread raises a few questions in my mind:
[ol]
[li]That BBC report tells us that other nations besides America take an interest in this mystical (though ultimately trivial) geographic feature. Do many other nations? A bit of Googling turned up this article on Russia, which also implicates France, Italy, Spain, and Australia in this harmless silliness.[/li]
[li]How do other nations mark their geographic centers? Russia could only afford a board, apparently. Britain, for the time being anyway, is content with “an undistinguished clump of grass surrounded by peat bog”. Which is how these things really should be done.[/li]
[li]Which nations have a geographic center lying outside their boundaries? I think Japan and Chile might be candidates, but I haven’t verified this.[/li][/ol]
I’m sorry, but I have to cite The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes by Walt Disney Studios and American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Both identify Lebanon, Kansas as the geographic center of the lower 48. If you try to say that entertainment media should not be mistaken for truth, I shall stick my fingers in my ears.
OK, here’s one to stump you. Without Googling… in which country would you find the geographical centre of Europe?
The answer may surprise you:
Lithuania. Yes, really.
Chile I doubt, as it is fairly “straight”, albeit narrow. Japan, probably, but island nations are cheating a bit, IMO.
How about nice “bent” countries like Norway, Vietnam and – a particularly good candidate – Somalia?
The center is where ever** I ** am daaahhhhlings. 
I thought Toronto was the ce–
No, wait. Toronto is the Centre of the Universe[sup]TM[/sup]. Never mind.
In this case how is Europe defined, that is, which countries are included? And what’s the geographic center of the EU?
Well, usually the Ural mountains in Russia are defined to be the Eastern edge. Down through the Caucasus things get fairly undefined, but Azerbaijan and Armenia are usually included. This map gives you an idea - Lithuania is the southernmost of the three Baltic states.
No idea. But the above map shows the new enlarged EU in blue. Eyeballing it, I’d guess somewhere near the borders of the Czech Republic and Germany.
The Wikipedia lists competing choices for the center of Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_centre_of_Europe
Poland or the “spoilered” choice, take your pick.
According to that article, the geographic center of the EU is in the village of Kleinmaischeid, Germany, using recently expanded membership (25 countries). For the 15 country union, it was Viroinval, Belgium.
I wonder how much inclusion/exclusion of Iceland and Greenland affect the calculations for Europe and North America. Iceland is generally included with Europe, and Greenland with North America by traditional cartographers.
On the other hand, it probably does matter if you attempt to do a planar projection of some kind, or take into the account that the surfaces of these countries are curved fragments of the earth’s crust.
Exacly. If you have a flat map that where the edges are the 180 meridian, then it matters a great deal. Of course, that would be a really stupid way to do it, but I love doing things in stupid ways.
Somalia is a toughie. The western border of the country is a north-south line.
Picking a “westernmost” point is impossible.
Also it’s northernmost point and it’s eastermost point, being about 3 feet from each other, would seem to skew the results toward the NE corner of the country.
Definitions would seem to be in order. For some reason the “balance on the point of a pencil” idea seems to take on added weight.
As far as including Alaska and Hawaii, hell, why dont we include Guam? I don’t think so.
Latvia? That methodology certainly includes vast expanses of Baltic sea,etc.
By the same token, I think not.
The "balance thing seems counter-intuitive…but is starting to be attractive.