# Who decides the "centre" of a city?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [June 27, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100 "2021-06-27T00:42:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/1 "2021-06-27T00:42:23Z")
Cities are generally big sprawling collections of buildings and so you’d think the location of the centre would be fuzzy in many cases. But road signs will tell you the exact number of miles to towns and cities, and many tourist attractions put up signs pointing out the distances to major cities around the world. So what point are they measuring to? Does each city have a defined location?
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### Author:  [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/2 "2021-06-27T00:53:46Z")
I won’t swear to it in open court but I always heard that road signs use City Hall for distances.
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### Author:  [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/3 "2021-06-27T00:54:14Z")
This is a popular question round these parts.
Two examples:
> [@Do road signs telling the distance to cities..](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-road-signs-telling-the-distance-to-cities/347222/3):
>
> I contend that the distances are only rough estimates to some reasonably close portion of the city or town. On the interstate that runs through my community, there are two signs for distance to my town. The first says “Swansea 12.” Drive four miles down the road, and the next one says “Swansea 10.” Neither of them are correct. I also noticed on I95 through Connecticut: “New Haven 55.” Drive 8 miles: “New Haven 50” Those signs were close (about 52 and 44 miles), given the distance from the Elm …
> [@What are highway mileage signs based on?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-highway-mileage-signs-based-on/350346):
>
> This came up during a conversation at work. Someone said that the mileage signs on highways are based on the distance to the City Post Office. Living in Dallas, I asked, “Which one? What if the Post Office changed location?” The conversation fell apart at that point with too many what ifs. I thought that the signs referred to the distance to the center of the city, but even that is questionable. How is the city center determined? Houston, for example, sprawls unevenly, in multiple directio…
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### Author:  [@mikecurtis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mikecurtis)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/4 "2021-06-27T01:00:12Z")
Since this is GQ…
[The Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices](https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/HTM/2003r1/part2/part2d2.htm)
Section 2D.36 Distance Signs (D2 Series)
Standard:
If used, the Distance (D2-1 through D2-3) sign (see Figure 2D-7) shall be a horizontal rectangle of a size appropriate for the required legend, carrying the names of not more than three Cities, towns, junctions, or other traffic generators, and the distance (to the nearest kilometer or mile) to those places.
Guidance:
The distance shown should be selected on a case-by-case basis by the jurisdiction that owns the road or by statewide policy. A well-defined central area or central business district should be used where one exists. In other cases, the layout of the community should be considered in relation to the highway being signed and the decision based on where it appears that most drivers would feel that they are in the center of the community in question.
The top name on the Distance sign should be that of the next place on the route having a post office or a railroad station, a route number or name of an intersected highway, or any other significant geographical identity. The bottom name on the sign should be that of the next major destination or control city. If three destinations are shown, the middle line should be used to indicate communities of general interest along the route or important route junctions.
Option:
The choice of names for the middle line may be varied on successive Distance signs to give road users additional information concerning communities served by the route.
Guidance:
The control city should remain the same on all successive Distance signs throughout the length of the route until that City is reached.
Option:
If more than one distant point may properly be designated, such as where the route divides at some distance ahead to serve two destinations of similar importance, and if these two destinations cannot appear on the same sign, the two names may be alternated on successive signs.
On a route continuing into another State, destinations in the adjacent State may be shown.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/5 "2021-06-27T02:56:37Z")
In large cities, you might see distances cited to the city even after you are already in the city! At least in Los Angeles, I see this. Even after you enter the San Fernando Valley (most of which is part of Los Angeles), there are still signs giving the distance to “Los Angeles”. They seem to refer to the “downtown” or Civic Center area of the city.
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### Author:  [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/6 "2021-06-27T11:06:04Z")
In Europe, many cities have a traditional spot which for centuries has been taken as the starting point from which distances are calculated. Often this spot has a decorative marker in the pavement. This goes, in particular, for capitals, where the distance to the capital city is a reference point throughout the country. For Paris, for instance, the relevant spot is in the square in front of Notre Dame cathedral. For London, it is Charing Cross, in the corner of Trafalgar Square. Ancient Rome had a golden milestone in the forum.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/7 "2021-06-27T11:56:28Z")
One way you can check where the “center” of a city is (or at least, where someone considers it to be) is to ask Google Maps for just a city, and then zoom in. Google gets their data from many different sources, and I’m pretty sure that the precise location of that center point ends up ultimately being decided by locals (such as a city surveyor’s office or something similar).
I know that for Cleveland, it ends up being the center of Public Square, which is indeed the spot any local would describe as being the “center of the city”.
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2021, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/8 "2021-06-27T13:51:17Z")
> [@Schnitte](#):
>
> For Paris, for instance, the relevant spot is in the square in front of Notre Dame cathedral. For London, it is Charing Cross,
Charing Cross is now known mostly as a station. The actual [Eleanor cross](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleanor_cross) was the point at which six major roads met and was a logical place to be nominated as the centre of London.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2021, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/9 "2021-06-28T18:40:57Z")
In Budapest, it’s a funky statue-thing.
[Zero Kilometre Stone - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Kilometre_Stone)
There’s one for Washington DC as well. [Zero Milestone - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Milestone)
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2021, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/10 "2021-06-28T19:23:45Z")
Good lord. My watering hole was about twenty meters from there (Budapest) and somehow don’t think I ever noticed the 0km marker or, if I did, it was quickly forgotten. And I mean I have been by it many hundreds of times.
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2021, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/11 "2021-06-28T19:37:46Z")
My wife and I walked by it on our honeymoon (on our way to the funicular up the hill), and I remember saying “What in the world is that?” and reading the “KM” at the bottom and theorizing that it must be the zero milestone for Budapest.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [June 28, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-decides-the-centre-of-a-city/945100/12 "2021-06-28T20:11:24Z")
When William Penn laid out the “Green Country Town” of Philadelphia, it went from river to river and (I think) Vine St. to South St. Broad St. was a nearly NS street roughly halfway between the rivers and Market St. perpendicular to it and somewhat closer to Vine than to South. Where Broad and Market would have met, there is a large square, City Hall Plaza, and there is the true center of the city. When the city incorporated all of its county around the mid 19th century, the plaza was no longer even remotely the center of the city, but we still called it center city (or downtown).