In 1872, the United States Census Bureau designated the center of the country as a point in Texas. But after years of research and testing different criteria, we’ve come to a shocking conclusion: There is no single “official” location for the center of America. Instead, we have several different possible candidates that all claim to be this mythical point where our nation’s heart resides. In celebration of this discovery, here are some facts about each contender:
Measuring the center of the United States is a complex task. The center of the US isn't a single point, but rather a region that changes over time.
The "center" of any shape or region is always changing. As people move and populations grow or decline, it isn't hard to imagine that this would impact how we define our "center."
A good question to ask yourself is, "What is the center of the United States?"
The answer may surprise you. The center of the United States isn't a single city or geographical location; it's actually a population center that can be found in several locations across America. That's because determining its exact coordinates depends on where you measure from—and there are multiple options for doing so. If you measure from an official federal building, for example, then we'll arrive at one answer as opposed to another if we measure from an airport or other institution instead.
Thus, there's no single official place that qualifies as being at "the center" of our country; rather than having one specific area where everyone would say “yes! This is definitely it” when asked about where their hometown falls within their nation's borders,...
The center of the United States is not a fixed point. It's not even a single point, but rather it's multiple locations that all claim to be the center depending on what criteria are used. For example, if you're looking for the geographic center of the contiguous 48 U.S. states, then technically that would be at 37°50′N 97°30′W in Kansas (about 1 mile south-southwest of Lebanon). However, if you wanted to find out where half of Americans live in each state then that answer would be different and could change every year due to population growth or decline.
There is no “official” location for the center of the United States. Throughout history, many different cities have been recognized as serving as the geographic center point of our country. While there are certainly some that are more popular than others, there is no real consensus on which city deserves this title.
Some people believe it should be a town in Kansas called Lebanon (population 2,000). Others feel that it should be a city called Vinita (population 8,000) in Oklahoma. Still others think it might be located somewhere in Colorado or Wyoming—or even Utah or Montana!
You might be surprised to learn that there is no "official" location for the center of the United States.
Instead, there are many possible locations: depending on what criteria you're using (the population center? The geographic center?), different places can claim to be the true center of America.
To understand how this works, we need to start with some basic geography and history.
As you can see, measuring the center of the United States is not a simple task. It’s a complex process that relies on population centers and arbitrary definitions. There are many places in the country that claim to be the center, but they all use different methods for their measurements. Because there is no “official” location for this spot, there will likely never be one!