science

List of geographic centers of the United States

List of geographic centers of the United States is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand List of geographic centers of the United States rather than just read about it. In short: This is a list of geographic centers of each U.S. state and inhabited territory. The geographic center of the United States is northeast of Belle Fourche in Butte County, South Dakota (44°58′N 103°46′W), while that of the contiguous 48 states is near Lebanon in Smith County, Kansas (39°50′N 98°35′W).

Key takeaways

List of geographic centers of the United States belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect List of geographic centers of the United States to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of List of geographic centers of the United States from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

This is a list of geographic centers of each U.S. state and inhabited territory. The geographic center of the United States is northeast of Belle Fourche in Butte County, South Dakota (44°58′N 103°46′W), while that of the contiguous 48 states is near Lebanon in Smith County, Kansas (39°50′N 98°35′W). The geographic center of North America lies near Rugby, North Dakota (48°10′N 100°10′W), though this designation has no official status. In 2017, a new calculation of the geographic center of North America placed it near the town of Center, North Dakota.

Historic list of geographic centers The list given below has been only slightly modified since it was first produced by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in the early 1920s. At that time, the center for a state was found by suspending a cardboard cutout of the state by a string, and then drawing a vertical line from the suspension point. After rotating the cutout 90 degrees and drawing another vertical line from the new suspension point, the intersection of the two vertical lines was used as the geographic center. The result is dependent upon the type of projection used.

Modern list of geographic centers Although there have been different definitions offered for the geographic center, an intuitive one, and one used by the USGS, is "the center of gravity of the surface, or that point on which the surface of the area would balance if it were a plane of uniform thickness." An updated list of geographic centers using this definition (which is equivalent to the state's centroid) is given below. It was derived by minimizing the sum of squared great circle distances from all points of land in a state (including islands, but not coastal waters, following the earlier practice of the USGS). It represents a slight improvement over the list originally published. The geographic center of the contiguous United States, determined in this way, is at 39°50.13′N 99°5.45′W; this is 5.4 miles (8.7 km) from Agra, Kansas, 5.7 miles (9.2 km) from Kensington, Kansas, and 26.9 great circle miles (43.3 km) west of the longstanding designated site near Lebanon, Kansas.

Geographic centers of the U.S. territories Very little information exists about the geographic centers of the U.S. territories. In a geological survey of all geographic centers in the U.S., the U.S. Department of the Interior did not measure the geographic centers of the U.S. territories. Similarly, the USGS does not include the territories in its list of geographic centers. In terms of each territory’s land area, only one territory, Puerto Rico, has a confirmed geographic center. There are also official geographic centers of territorial exclusive economic zones, though those geographic centers are based on a territory's territorial waters (not land area).

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with List of geographic centers of the United States

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what List of geographic centers of the United States claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to List of geographic centers of the United States before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about List of geographic centers of the United States ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of List of geographic centers of the United States

In research: List of geographic centers of the United States appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses List of geographic centers of the United States in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: List of geographic centers of the United States is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Geographical centres, Geography of the United States, United States geography-related lists by state, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for List of geographic centers of the United States outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study List of geographic centers of the United States in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what List of geographic centers of the United States means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain List of geographic centers of the United States out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is List of geographic centers of the United States in simple terms?

Why does List of geographic centers of the United States matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study List of geographic centers of the United States?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on List of geographic centers of the United States.