Literally a thousand miles from nowhere (for certain values of nowhere...)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was listening to a country song this morning, and the phrase “a thousand miles from nowhere” popped out at me. (No, it wasn’t actually the Dwight Yoakam tune with that title.) And it got me thinking…

Well, a thousand miles is really a long way. So if you take the lower 48 states, and begin excluding territory based on being within 1000 miles of a large city, what’s the last spot you’re left with, and how far down the list of big cities do you have to go?

So I found this cool mapping tool, and pulled up the list of big US cities, and started working. Once I plotted circles around New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, there was still a little space left in southern Texas, northern Washington State, and most of Montana. Ooh, next on the list is Dallas, so sorry Texas!

Then there were a lot of cities which didn’t seem to get me any closer to the remaining territory in the northwest, and finally: San Francisco! That circle covered all of Washington State and a lot of the remaining territory in Montana, but there was still a little chunk left, including Malta. So I dub Malta, Montana, a thousand miles from nowhere.

That Montana territory gets eliminated once we get down to Seattle, which is the 15th city on the list.

Mundane and pointless, I’m sure, but I had some fun with this. Can anybody think of sufficiently large but well populated countries we could do this with? China? Australia?? It might be fun to see how far down the list you have to go with Canada until all of the frozen north is covered with circles. :smiley:

Edited to add: On looking at the map again, I just realized that there’s also some of southern Florida not covered with the circles I placed, but Miami and Atlanta are #8 and 9… :wink: So Florida isn’t really a contender.

2

There are likely fun variations, like distance from airports of a certain size.

3

Wouldn’t that technically have to be a “thousand miles from somewhere”?

4

So trace a 1000 mile radius adobe Malta to place yourself 1000 miles from nowhere. :slight_smile:

5

1660 miles from nowhere?

6

That is an interesting mapping tool. Other fun variations include finding, similar to the OP, remote places that would have dark night skies for stargazing. Malta MT, for example, is getting close (kinda) to the Canada cities of Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton.

I’ll want to play with that map tool.

7

That letter to Cecil says,

Country Squires? What? And then I noticed it was written in 1977, when station wagons were the family hauler of choice. The station wagon was then replaced by the minivan, which later was replaced by the SUV.

8

I made a similar map, but using the American, Canadian, and Mexican cities on this list that attempts to correct for some of the arbitrary factors that determine the boundaries of cities and metro areas. Like you I found the last part of the lower 48 to be covered was in north-central Montana. My area was just a little farther north and east than Malta because Malta is just under 1000 from Denver, Seattle, and Vancouver, which are high on that list. That last little bit of Montana wasn’t finally covered until I added Calgary, which is something like the 51st city in North America on that list.

9

I wonder–after 40 years–if it’s time for Cecil to revisit that question? Zillionaires buying Pacific Islands and setting up shop? Maybe the southern Pacific isn’t as remote as it once was.

10

Oops. I was using a radius of 1000 km. Damn the metric system. With 1000 miles and my list, the last uncovered bit in the lower 48 is also near Malta. Adding Seattle is what finally covers it.