What's the center point of your city?

[empirestate]

Does your city or town have an easily identifiable traditional or ceremonial (not geographic) center point? To define it most simply, the center point is where you'd place the dot for your city if you were drawing a map. (Assume you have to place a dot symbol somewhere, even if the map is zoomed all the way in to street level.)

For example, at the moment I'm in Charlotte, NC, which has a very obvious center point at the intersection of Trade and Tryon Streets. At this point, the E, W, N and S directional suffixes and address numbering all originate, and it's also the vertex of the first, second, third and fourth wards of the city (as well as the newer chamber of commerce branding that defines the North, South, East and West quadrants of Uptown, conveniently offset by 45 degrees from both the ward boundaries and the corresponding compass directions).

For many cities, the center point would be on a courthouse square or similar civic feature, such as a prominent monument. In other cases you might place the dot at City Hall, even if it isn't particularly auspiciously situated.

Where would you put the point for New York City? On City Hall at the civic center? At Times Square, or Grand Central? Or maybe Columbus Circle, which was the traditional origin point in the old guidebooks? (Or maybe you're some kind of wiseguy and wouldn't even put it in Manhattan at all!)

DC is easy–you'd put it on the Zero Milestone. No wait–the Capitol. Or maybe the Washington Monument? Hmm...

How about Boston? On the State House, or Government Center? Maybe the old State House is better, or even Faneuil Hall?

And then there's Las Vegas: obviously you can't put the dot in the Strip, even though that's the best-known feature of the city. Still, it has to be factually accurate and fall within the city limits, doesn't it? Or does it?

That brings us to a case like London–does our dot have to fall within the City of London? Or could it be, say, on Buckingham Palace, or Parliament, and thus actually located in Westminster? (Or do we need two dots, to show two cities?)

OK, enough from me...have at it!

[EDIT: Clarifying that we're not looking for geographic centers.]

[sammi]

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7956916,-79.4222783,16z





Toronto: it's either Queen's Park or City Hall or Yonge and Queen (one block east of City Hall).

Vaughan: Highway 7 and Weston, near the site of the under-construction subway station, which for obvious reasons is named Vaughan Metropolitan Center Centre.

[vtk]

Columbus is easy: Broad and High.  Another good choice might be 40°N×83°W, as it's central to the area over which Columbus has grown over two centuries, but it's not good enough to beat the long-standing, rarely-disputed tradition of marking the center at Broad & High.

Hilliard: Main & Center.  Some "residents" might instead put it at "the triangle" formed by Main, Cemetery, and Scioto Darby and containing a Donato's Pizza; some might even put it at Hilliard—Rome & Renner, but they are quite wrong.

Grove City: Broadway & Columbus, or maybe Broadway & Grove City Rd?

West Jefferson: Main & Walnut, probably.

Dublin: traditionally Bridge & High, today maybe Avery-Muirfield & Perimeter, in the future possibly Bridge & Riverside.

Galloway: Galloway & O'Harra (& the Camp Chase Industrial Railroad, formerly New York Central) but most people who live "in Galloway" have no clue.

I guess Ohio cities are pretty easy, as nearly all of them began as small platted grids with an obvious center.

[empirestate]

Toronto: it's either Queen's Park or City Hall or Yonge and Queen (one block east of City Hall).

Yeah, that's another tough one...obviously Queen's Park or the Legislature building makes sense, except it's a little way off from the city's commercial heart (sometimes the centerpoint of a province or state is not coincident with the centerpoint of the city it's in). I feel like Toronto's has to be on Yonge somewhere, either at Queen or maybe Dundas Square (or is that too touristy to be the genuine center?).

[vtk]

Toronto: it's either Queen's Park or City Hall or Yonge and Queen (one block east of City Hall).

Yeah, that's another tough one...obviously Queen's Park or the Legislature building makes sense, except it's a little way off from the city's commercial heart (sometimes the centerpoint of a province or state is not coincident with the centerpoint of the city it's in). I feel like Toronto's has to be on Yonge somewhere, either at Queen or maybe Dundas Square (or is that too touristy to be the genuine center?).

I took a brief look at GMaps and thought Queen looked like an important axis, and of the arterials which intersect it, University looked to be the most central.

[vtk]

Looking at other major cities to which I am not at all a local:

NYC: 34th and Ave of the Americas (Google seems to put the dot near the west end of Brooklyn Bridge approach)

Chicago: Congress & Michigan

Houston: Main & Dallas

LA: 6th & Grand

I'm sure locals will disagree with me on these.

[briantroutman]

In San Francisco, it at least was at Mount Olympus which is topped by a statue that's now shrouded in overgrown trees. Apparently the true center has shifted in the past century due to landfill on the bay side. So now it's probably further south and east...I'd think in Noe Valley somewhere.

[Zmapper]

Denver: Either 16th and California, or Colfax and Broadway.
Fort Collins: College and Mountain (only streets in original grid to have 140' wide Rights-of-Way; all others were 100')

[Tom958]

Atlanta's is Five Points: the intersection of Peachtree, Marietta and Decatur Streets with Edgewood Avenue.

[oscar]

The U.S. Capitol is where Washington D.C.'s four quadrants (NW, NE, SW, SE) meet, and the street grid works off of.  It might once have been more or less at the perfect geographic center point (perhaps tweaked a little, to put the Capitol on ground more solid than a drained swamp), but no longer after the parts of D.C. west of the Potomac were returned to Virginia.

If the D.C. street grid ever extended west of the Potomac (why would it, with so few river crossings, all built post-retrocession?), it seems no trace of it remains in what are now Arlington County and part of Alexandria city.

[jeffandnicole]

And then there's Las Vegas: obviously you can't put the dot in the Strip, even though that's the best-known feature of the city. Still, it has to be factually accurate and fall within the city limits, doesn't it? Or does it?

That's a trick question.  Freemont Street would probably be the 'center' point of Las Vegas.  Why not the Strip?  Because the Strip isn't in Las Vegas!  The Strip is in an unincorporated part of the county.

In Philadelphia, the center point would easily be City Hall, in which Broad and Market Streets form a one-way square of travel around it.

[NWI_Irish96]

In my current city of Jeffersonville, I would put the dot at the intersection of Spring St. and Court Ave.

Other Indiana cities:

Indianapolis - Monument Circle (duh)
South Bend - Michigan St and Colfax Ave
Elkhart - Main St. and Jackson Blvd.
Goshen - Main St. and Lincoln Ave.
Plymouth - Michigan St. and Lincoln Hwy.

[Pete from Boston]

On any map that would be at a scale that would use a dot, all those Boston examples end up being in the same place — their dots are indistinguishable. 

[Brandon]

Looking at other major cities to which I am not at all a local:

Chicago: Congress & Michigan

I'm not so sure I'd go quite so far north for Chicago, and maybe further west - O'Hare skews the center point a bit.  I'd probably pick Cermak (22nd St) and Kedzie due to O'Hare on one end, and the South Side extending down to 140th St (over 16 miles south of Madison and State) on the other end.

As for my city, Joliet's has moved west over time as land has been annexed to the west.  Currently, I'd say it's somewhere near or at the Inwood Golf Course on the West Side near Essington and Jefferson (US-52).

[empirestate]

I took a brief look at GMaps and thought Queen looked like an important axis, and of the arterials which intersect it, University looked to be the most central.

They're a bit different in feel: Yonge definitely feels more centrally urban, while University seems more like a street on the periphery of an urban core. I think if you really came down to it, Bay St. would end up being the most central–which brings us back to the idea that maybe City Hall is the right spot.

Looking at other major cities to which I am not at all a local:

NYC: 34th and Ave of the Americas (Google seems to put the dot near the west end of Brooklyn Bridge approach)

Google's dot would be at City Hall, then. Your spot is pretty reasonable, too. That's Herald Square and is a major commercial focus, and 6th Ave. does feel like the central thoroughfare of Midtown. What it comes to is whether you deem the locus of the city to be in Midtown, or in Lower Manhattan, which is the historic, financial and political core.

Chicago: Congress & Michigan

Chicago has a N, S, E, W nexus at State and Madison, so that's where I'd put it.

In San Francisco, it at least was at Mount Olympus which is topped by a statue that's now shrouded in overgrown trees. Apparently the true center has shifted in the past century due to landfill on the bay side. So now it's probably further south and east...I'd think in Noe Valley somewhere.

I'm not so sure I'd go quite so far north for Chicago, and maybe further west - O'Hare skews the center point a bit.  I'd probably pick Cermak (22nd St) and Kedzie due to O'Hare on one end, and the South Side extending down to 140th St (over 16 miles south of Madison and State) on the other end.

As for my city, Joliet's has moved west over time as land has been annexed to the west.  Currently, I'd say it's somewhere near or at the Inwood Golf Course on the West Side near Essington and Jefferson (US-52).

Sounds like you guys are thinking of the geographic center, which I don't think many mapmakers would chose for their center point (otherwise, cities like Juneau would be very misleadingly depicted!). It's usually going to be some kind of discernible social, political or commercial center, or better yet, an established ceremonial point or traditional locus. For San Francisco, I think this would be on Market St. at either Montgomery or California–certainly nowhere beyond the triangle of those three streets.

And then there's Las Vegas: obviously you can't put the dot in the Strip, even though that's the best-known feature of the city. Still, it has to be factually accurate and fall within the city limits, doesn't it? Or does it?

That's a trick question.  Freemont Street would probably be the 'center' point of Las Vegas.  Why not the Strip?  Because the Strip isn't in Las Vegas!  The Strip is in an unincorporated part of the county.

Not meant to be a trick; in fact, it's meant as a legitimate question for the very reason you've stated!

On any map that would be at a scale that would use a dot, all those Boston examples end up being in the same place — their dots are indistinguishable. 

That's very true, but remember that part of the exercise is to assume you have to choose a spot, even at a much closer zoom level than would be cartographically appropriate. The dot-on-a-map symbol is just a guide to illustrate the type of location we're looking for.

I'm also curious where you'd mark the center for a lot of the newer core-less cities, such as Irvine, CA and most of the others in south Orange County, or perhaps the Minneapolis suburbs that are essentially incorporated MCDs.

[Zeffy]

Oh, I misread that question entirely. You want a NON-geographic point of a city?

Trenton - The Battle Monument, hands down. Symbolizing George Washington's victory on the Hessians in Trenton, Trenton's nickname "The Turning Point of the Revolution" is echoed with the tallest structure in the city at the intersection of present day NJ 31 and US 206. Unfortunately, the neighborhood around that parts is beyond sketchy, which makes visiting it... sketchy as well. No other place in Trenton really comes to mind as a center point.

Camden - I would guess the Camden Co. City Hall, located on N 6th St near Federal and Market Streets.

[jeffandnicole]

And then there's Las Vegas: obviously you can't put the dot in the Strip, even though that's the best-known feature of the city. Still, it has to be factually accurate and fall within the city limits, doesn't it? Or does it?

That's a trick question.  Freemont Street would probably be the 'center' point of Las Vegas.  Why not the Strip?  Because the Strip isn't in Las Vegas!  The Strip is in an unincorporated part of the county.

Not meant to be a trick; in fact, it's meant as a legitimate question for the very reason you've stated!

Since I was tricked by the non-trickiness of the question, what a lot of people refer to then at 'Center Strip' is the area around Bellagio, Caesars, Flamingo, & Ballys, which to most people would be the Center of Las Vegas.

Oh, I misread that question entirely. You want a NON-geographic point of a city?

Trenton - The Battle Monument, hands down. Symbolizing George Washington's victory on the Hessians in Trenton, Trenton's nickname "The Turning Point of the Revolution" is echoed with the tallest structure in the city at the intersection of present day NJ 31 and US 206. Unfortunately, the neighborhood around that parts is beyond sketchy, which makes visiting it... sketchy as well. No other place in Trenton really comes to mind as a center point.

I would argue the State House is the center point of the city.  Yes, it really doesn't have anything to do with the city itself, but for most people talking about or visiting the city, the State House would be the destination for many of those visitors.

[Brandon]

Oh, I misread that question entirely. You want a NON-geographic point of a city?

I thought much the same thing, the point of where a city would be balanced if placed on a pin or a pole.

Well, I can see the following, just around NE Illinois:

Chicago: State and Madison, maybe Michigan and the Chicago River (part way between State and the Mag Mile)
Joliet: Jefferson and Ottawa
Aurora: Galena Blvd and the Fox River (Stolp Island)
Naperville: Washington and Chicago
Plainfield: IL-59 and Lockport St
Lockport: State (IL-171) and 9th (IL-7)

[english si]

London has a skyscraper next to Tottenham Court Road tube station called "Centre Point". It got the name as it is the centre of the tube map (where the horizontal Central Line and vertical Northern Line cross - the original Beck tube map treated those routes as defining the map), and will get Crossrail and Crossrail 2 to reinforce its centrality. However, it isn't really the centre and certainly doesn't feel like it.

Roadwise, Bank is the hub of the road network, and Charing Cross where distances are measured to.

Arguably, Trafalgar Square, right next to Charing Cross, is the centre - on the edge of the West End (shopping/entertainment centre), on the edge of the political centre at Westminster, though someway away from the traditional business centre in The City - certainly it is at the focal point of roads between them though. Trafalgar Square feels like a hub where action happens, but that has a lot to do with being a large open space near to where it actually happens, rather than lots happening there (other than tourism and occasional events). I'd still say it is the centre of London.

[agentsteel53]

San Diego's political center is very much not the geographic center.  Google Maps gives us Broadway at 4th.  most of the government buildings, including City Hall and various county offices, are about two blocks west of there, but I'd say 4th is close enough.

[Crewdawg]

Phoenix would have to be Central Ave and Washington St

[sammi]

Back to Toronto...

I picked Yonge because it's the axis of the street grid: street names change from East to West (and vice versa) upon crossing Yonge Street. One major grid street even changes names (Wilson to York Mills).

I don't know about Queen, but it just looks like the most viable candidate for a major east-west street. Eglinton and Bloor are both too far north, and Front is too far south. So Yonge and Queen it is.



Looks off, doesn't it? The real geographical center would be near Bayview and Eglinton.

Laying it over the pre-amalgamation boundaries, Yonge and Queen is more geographically centered, but I think roughly Bloor would be the actual center of the old City of Toronto.



A few other parts of Toronto come to mind: North York gets Yonge and Park Home / Empress, near the location of North York Civic Centre and the North York Centre subway station. Scarborough is Scarborough Town Centre at Ellesmere and McCowan (which I may have misplaced on the map) and the Scarborough Centre RT station.

[mrsman]

For any city with 4 quadrants, even if the quadrants aren't equal the intersection of those quadrants becomes the center:

Washington DC - US Capitol
Miami - Flagler & Miami Ave

For cities with N, S, E, W addresses, I'd say you pick the zero point of the addresses:

Chicago - State & Madison
Los Angeles - 1st & Main
Portland, OR - Burnside at the River
Baltimore - Charles & Baltimore
Atlanta - 5 Points

Some cities have unique systems where you have to go away from the above to pick the centerpoint.  Including many cities that count zero from the river, ocean, or other boundary of the town.  There, it's a matter of personal preferences.

Seattle - 4th & Madison. 
San Francisco - Market & First
Philadelphia - City Hall
New York - Herald Square
Pittsburgh - Market Square
Boston - Washington and State
Cleveland - Superior & Ontario in Public Square


Geographic Center is a little harder to do, but probably more interesting.  Should we set up a new thread to discuss?

[pianocello]

Davenport: Either River and Brady (where the street numbering is centered) or River and Main (a block west).
Bettendorf: the foot of the I-74 bridge. That one is a bit harder, though, since it's basically a suburb.
Moline: John Deere Pavilion (River and 15th St)
Rock Island: 1st Ave and 17th St

Peoria, IL (just a guess): Main and Washington
Lansing, MI: the Capitol. That's an easy one. Likewise,
Iowa City, IA: the old Capitol.
Valparaiso, IN: This would definitely have to be somewhere on Lincolnway, probably at the courthouse (Washington St)

[kkt]

London - there would also be an argument to be made for London Bridge, the bridgeable point in the river there is why there's a city there.

Seattle - Westlake Park at 4th and Pine.

San Francisco - Union Square.  Runners up would be the Civic Center plaza, as it's not only pretty but also the center of power; and the Ferry Building where most of the other streets radiate out from.