Rolf Palmberg has a very good article (among others) on the Center of Europe , which I want to translate for you. Unfortunately the copy I took at work I exchanged for some great maps of France with borders.
Well I tryed to figure out the centers of the other continents and it is really hard. I first tryed to guess without looking at the map, but I was way off when I took out my map. I guessed N America to be around Nebraska, but I ended up with a Canadain spot. I was cheated by the size of Alaska. Alaska looks smaller than it really is due to the way the map is drawn. The center of Africa was also tricky due to its shape.
Jesper
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brendan Whyte" <brwhyte@...>
To: <BoundaryPoint@egroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 09, 2000 2:18 AM
Subject: Re: [BoundaryPoint] Center of Europe
> The www.auslig.gov.au site has a page of facts on Austrlaia's geography
> (which i posted last week with regards to state borders), including 5
> different methods of locating the centre, and they are shown on a map.
> Europe could also be done following those methods. But given the more
> interesting coastline (seas, inlets, etc) or europe, ie it is not convex
> like Austrlaia, a simple averaging of extremities will produce a more biased
> figure.
>
> Aparently the centre of NSW is marked by a cairn in a remote locaiton sort
> of near to Dubbo.
>
> The Stats bureau of NZ located the POPULATION centre of NZ from the last
> census. The US has donw the same for all censuses, and the point makes an
> interesting westward migration, turning south recently.
> Has any other country done this? Austrlaia hasn't.
>
> Brendan
>
>
> >From: "Jesper & Nicolette Nielsen" <jesniel@...>
> >Reply-To: BoundaryPoint@egroups.com
> >To: <BoundaryPoint@egroups.com>
> >Subject: [BoundaryPoint] Center of Europe
> >Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2000 18:52:57 +0100
> >
> >Anyone else want to have a go on where the center of Europe is?
> >
> >Jesper
> >
> > > >>notes in answer to questions someone raised earlier
> > > >>
> > > >>easternmost europe appears to lie on crest of north urals at about 66
> >east
> > > >>longitude
> > > >>
> > > >>center of europe computed by simply averaging geocoords of extremities
> > > >>is about 29e longitude & 53 or 54n latitude
> > > >>which falls perhaps 100km southeast of minsk
> > > >>surprise
> > > >>
> > > >>however this is probably quite distinct from the true geographic
> >center
> > > >>which i havent a clue how to compute
> > >
> > > btw does anyone know this
> > >
> > > m
> >
> >
>
> _____________________________________________________________________________________
> Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
>
>
>
> * * * BoundaryPoint shortcuts * * *
> Post new message: BoundaryPoint@egroups.com
> Subscribe: BoundaryPoint-subscribe@egroups.com
> Unsubscribe: BoundaryPoint-unsubscribe@egroups.com
> List owner: BoundaryPoint-owner@egroups.com
> URL to main page: http://www.egroups.com/group/BoundaryPoint
>
>
>