Comments on: How can I figure out the geographical center of my country, state, province?

By: larry

larry — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:20:21 +0000

True, and interesting. The one-piece countries’ centroids could be found by the plumb line method, which is easier to use than trying to balance a map in a pin point.
Apparently Suchi Gopal’s method (see above) can deal with islands. I suppose it would be just a more tedious exercise to find the centroid of Japan or the Philippines.

By: eiffel

eiffel — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 13:34:52 +0000

It has just occurred to me that there are “curved” countries whose centroid lies in another country. Somalia’s centroid may fall within Ethiopia, and that of Chile may fall within Argentina. Norway’s centroid is probably within Sweden. Vietnam’s centroid may fall within either Cambodia or Laos. It’s hard to tell, just by looking at a map.

Then there are the countries whose centroid lies over water. Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines are candidates. Most of the pacific island groups would also have their centroid over water. Possibly also Panama.

By: larry

larry — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:25:22 +0000

No, but there are less centroids than there are Starbucks.

One could also visit all the places that someone at sometime considered to be the center of Europe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_midpoint_of_Europe

By: eiffel

eiffel — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:44:23 +0000

If you type “United States” into the Google Maps search box, then zoom in as far as you can go, you end up near Bolton, Kansas.

But really, I wonder whether there’s any point knowing the centroid of a place, least of all visiting a monument that’s been plunked there.