Where is the Center of the United States?

People often talk about “Middle America” or the “Heartland” of the nation. Most assuredly, this refers to the many states that sit at the middle third of the country’s landmass. Sparsely populated, mostly rural, and all but a handful are landlocked.

But, If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s taking things super literally, and putting an inordinate amount of time and research into figuring out exactly what the “middle” of America actually is.

Where is the center of the US?

This question leads us down a rabbit hole. To figure out exactly where the center of the nation is, you have to define a couple things:

• What do you mean by “center”?

  • A “Bounding Box” center, which draws a box around the landmass, enclosing the Northernmost, Easternmost, Southernmost, and Westernmost points of the landmass and finding the precise center of the rectangle you created. This method has its flaws, because, depending on the orientation and shape of the landmass, it’s quite possible that the center of the bounding box will fall outside of the landmass itself. Because of this, geographers will more often gravitate towards…

  • A Gravitational Center. Simply put, and a tad oversimplified, this entails finding the center of gravity of the landmass. If you cut the precise shape of the United States out of a piece of cardboard, at what point could you balance the entire cardboard country on the tip of a pin?

• What is it that you mean by “the US”?

• Okay, smart aleck. What DO you mean by “the US”?

  • The Contiguous 48 States: All the states that are trapped in one big mass between Canada, Mexico, and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

  • All 50 States: The contiguous 48 states plus Alaska and Hawaii.

  • All Territory Owned or Controlled by the United States

With all the different definitions at play here, it became clear that this question was well-suited to an infographic. With that in mind, I also decided to find the other extreme points of the United States: North, South, East, and West.

Stay tuned after the graphic for more information about each of these locations!

Note: The Contiguous 48 and All 50 States maps use the Gravitational Center definition, while the All US Territory map uses the Bounding Box method, as data was limited on that front.

Contiguous 48 States

North

Northwest Angle, Minnesota (49º23’N 95º09’W)

• In 1997, some residents considered seceding from the US to join Canada because of fishing restrictions.

• According to the 2010 census, this area was inhabited by a total of 119 people, 118 of which were white, and a single, lonely person was Native American. And I thought my town lacked diversity!

East

West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, Lubec, Maine (44º48’N 66º57’W)

• In 1897 and 1898, this town was subjected to two conmen named Reverend Prescott Jernegan and Charles Fisher, both from Martha’s Vineyard. These guys claimed to have invented a machine that could extract gold from seawater. They bought an old grist mill planning to turn it into a factory, for which they pulled in many investors from town. The investors expected to be flush with cash in no time, but in the summer of 1898, work suddenly ceased at the factory, and Jernegan and Fisher disappeared into the wind.

South

Key West, Florida (24º32’N 81º47’W)

• Ernest Hemingway’s old house is home to 54 free-roaming polydactyl cats, descended from Hemingway’s own hexadactyl pet, Snowball. These cats are cared for by the Hemingway House, which has been notably exempted from Key West’s city law prohibiting more than 4 pets in a household.

• Aside from Hemingway, many other famous writers have lived in Key West, including Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, Judy Blume, and even the Master of Parrots himself, Jimmy Buffet.

• One mayor of Key West is known for having water-skied to Cuba.

West

Cape Alava, Washington (48º09’N 124º43’W)

• In 1834, the Hojunmaru, a rice transport ship from Japan was blown off course, losing both its rudder and mast. Though the 14 sailors onboard only intended to sell a few hundred miles to Edo, the powerful Kuroshio or “black current” carried their directionless ship eastward for 14 months. There was plenty of food aboard, as they were carrying a few tons of rice, and could supplement with fish and birds, but no source of Vitamin C. Before finally landing at Cape Alava, most of the crew had died of scurvy, while the 3 survivors staggered onto land, meeting the local Makah tribe. The Makah briefly captured the survivors, but they were eventually retrieved by European traders at Fort Vancouver, who taught them English and brought them to China via London. Sadly they weren’t able to return to their homeland, as Japan at the time was voluntarily closed off to outside influences, and any Japanese expatriates, voluntary or otherwise, were seen as “contaminated”, not allowed to return.

Center

Lebanon, Kansas (39º49’N 98º34’W)

• This town is home to a tiny chapel. 6 ft x 7 ft, this church can uncomfortably cram about 6 faithful into its diminutive pews, about the same seating capacity as the car which missed a turn and destroyed the church in 2008.

All 50 States

North

Point Barrow, Alaska (71º23’N 156º28’W)

• This area has long been home to natives, the Iñupiat, and was occupied by their ancestors, the Thule, since at least the early 1000s AD.

• This point is been used many times as a jumping-off point for Arctic expeditions.

East

West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, Maine

South

Ka Lae, Hawaii (18º54’N 155º40’W)

• One of the earliest Hawaiian settlements, where historians believe the ancient Polynesians first landed in about 400 AD.

• Popular cliff jumping site

West

Cape Wrangell, Alaska (52º55’N 172º26’E)

• Situated on the Aleutian Island, Attu, site of a Japanese Navy invasion in 1942, the first major invasion of the United States since the War of 1812.

Center

Belle Fourche, South Dakota 44°58′N 103°46′W

• Hometown of Francis Townsend, a physician who laid the groundwork for America’s Social Security program.

All United States Territory

North

Point Barrow, Alaska

East

Point Udall, Saint Croix, US Virgin Islands (17º45’N 64º33’W)

• Where Alexander Hamilton spent his childhood

• Settled by various civilizations including groups native to the region like the Igneri, the Taino, and the Caribs. Later, the island would come under control of the Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Danish, and eventually the United States 1916

• Because of the Nine Years War, the island was evacuated by the French in 1695, and it remained uninhabited for 38 years.

South

Rose Atoll, American Samoa (14º33’S 168º09’W)

• An uninhabited wildlife refuge.

• In 1722, it was named Vuil Eiland or meaning “Useless Island” by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen.

• One 4 star Google Review says, “There was a sea turtle that got an attitude with me, other than that — this is a nice place to discover.”

West

Cape Wrangell, Alaska

Center

Nowhere, Middle of Ocean (27º25’N 126º04’W)

• Depth of 4,300 meters.

• Pretty much just water here.

• Sooooo… yeah.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Caution: Spoilers ahead.

To those in my circle of friends, it's no secret that I'm a big fanboy of the Jurassic Park franchise. As a member of Gen Y, I was in that group of kids that was far too young and impressionable to be watching Dwayne Knight as Dennis Nedry getting blinded and eviscerated by a dilophosaurus in a Jeep. To this day, Nedry's pained screams haunt me.

You know exactly which scene I'm talking about.

Even being a bit young, I absolutely loved Jurassic Park. It's the first time I can remember being scared as a kid but enjoying that thrill. I had my own toy velociraptor that I attacked my plastic army men with, and regularly replayed in my brain what my exit strategy would be if I were ever cornered in a field by a pack of raptors myself. (My personal strategy involved looking left, because that's apparently where they get you. It is the devil's direction after all.)

RIP Muldoon

This is the point in the review where you usually see a turn. Now that I've underlined my credentials as an ardent supporter of the first film, you're probably expecting me to say something about how the Jurassic World reboots, "totally destroyed my childhood! It took everything I loved as a kid and dunked it in the toilet. It went back in time and retroactively erased the fond memories I had of the film! *SCREEEEECH!*" After all, if anyone is going to be unforgiving of a soft reboot, it's going to be the guy that obsessed over the original.

But, to the disappointment of Orthodox Jurassic Parkites, I have loved both installments of the Jurassic World series so far.

As much as I love the 1993 film, I'm perfectly happy welcoming Jurassic World I & II into the family. I'll agree that the Jurassic World retreaded a lot of similar plot points that were in the original film, but this didn't bother me, for the simple reason that it's taking the story to the next logical step.

Playing on the themes of unchecked scientific progress without progression of responsibility that were established in the original film, the first installment of Jurassic World shows us a park that has seemingly worked out the kinks and is open and running, attracting more visitors than Disneyland. Seeing as the this was John Hammond's original goal, and the public is starting to get used to--and perhaps a little bored of--the reality of living dinosaurs, it makes sense that the owners of the park now crave more and decide to engineer completely new creatures to drum up more interest. As you might expect, this blows up in their faces spectacularly, as the new dino they've put together, an abomination called the Indominous Rex, is extremely predatory, very smart, and downright bloodthirsty.

What could possibly go wrong?

With the park left in shambles and re-abandoned, we open up Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom with the premise that Isla Nublar is nearing a natural disaster, the active volcano at its center about to erupt and destroy all the feral dinosaurs now roaming the island.

Our main characters, animal trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and former executive of the park Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) are summoned by John Hammond's old friend Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell) to use their expertise to round up some of the last dinosaurs to be transported to a nature preserve on another island. However, Lockwood's second-in-command Eli Mills (Rafe Spall, but the whole time I was watching I could have sworn he was James Van Der Beek) has other plans and decides to reroute the captured dinosaurs and auction them off as weapons to international arms dealers. The final piece in their auction is an entirely new breed of tactical, weaponized raptor, engineered using some of the Indominous Rex's DNA.

As this new creature is being brought into the auction hall, and the Mr. Burns/Lex Luthor/Scrooge McDuck-types go crazy bidding for this weaponized animal, I couldn't help thinking, "You know, I really wouldn't mind if this thing got loose and wreaked havoc on these people." Which was probably by design.

In Fallen Kingdom, we see the greed and unchecked progression of the original film taken to its logical conclusion: weaponized dinos, out-of-control genetic experimentation, and the classic Frankensteinian consequences of playing god.

The main monster of the film, the "Indo-Raptor", is the first one of these dinosaurs that, for me, played as not just scary, but also legitimately creepy, and there is a difference. The Indo-Raptor, like the Indominous before it, seemed like it was killing with malicious intent, like it was a serial killer in reptile form. Something in the character design and the expressions and mannerisms of this thing gave me the chills, as well as the savage implications of its use in war. There's something about the concept of a man-made creature designed 100-percent for killing, and not just a reconstruction of what naturally existed, that I found very unsettling, a great way of upping the ante.

Without spoiling the ending completely, I'll say that I thought the ending was a gutsy way to end the movie, which left things open in a very interesting and unexpected way, which entices me for the direction things might take in future installments.

Final Score:

While acknowledging that it wasn't perfect, I thoroughly enjoyed my time watching Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. It was intense and complex, and takes the series in a different but logical path that I'm excited to explore further.

NOTE FROM THE REVIEWER (12/7/2019): As I sit here about a year and a half removed from my viewing of this film, I do have one concession to make. I will still maintain that this movie was really entertaining and I enjoyed my time with it, it should be noted, that my viewing of it benefited greatly from being quite literally, the best thing that happened to me that day. Earlier that day I was forced to have my beloved dog put to sleep due to some inoperable cancer the poor guy was dealing with, and my family graciously took me to a movie that night to get my mind off it for a little bit. I say this not to get sympathy from my readers or to provide an inarguable reason for my review, but to perhaps offer a little context. To me, this movie represented a brief retreat into a nostalgic franchise that brought me a moment of happiness on a dark day. I’d be remiss as a reviewer if I didn’t admit that this movie probably would have earned 3 stars under normal circumstances, but the extreme conditions I saw it under earned it an extra star for the service it provided to me on that day. This one time, just one post after I explained my rule system, I’ll allow a small bending of my “Reviewing in a Vacuum” rule.

To catch up on the Jurassic Park series while supporting this blog, follow one of the links below.

How CineRater Movie Reviews Work

Film being an extremely subjective experience, rating a movie might seem arbitrary and pointless. One man's trash is another's treasure, so how can you even compare? The only way to give someone an idea of how good your cinematic experience measured up is to rate it on some sort of scale. But which scale? Every reviewer has their own rating scale, and each has it's strengths and weaknesses. Do you use the binary scale of thumbs up vs. thumbs down? Roger Ebert's 4-star system? The pointlessly precise 1-100 scale?

CineRater uses a simple 5-star rating system, with a couple rules:

1. No fractional stars. I prefer rating like this because it gets to the heart of how you really feel about the movie. It forces you to make a tough decision; no fence-sitting. The closest I'll allow to cheating this rule is indicating that a movie achieved a certain star rating, but just barely (saying, "this movie gets 3 stars, but just barely escaped getting 2" instead of "2.5" or "if it had better acting it would have been a 4, but sadly, I have to give it a 3" instead of "3.5").

2. Movies are rated in a vacuum. That is, movies are rated on their own merits, not based on if another movie did the same thing better or worse. Each film is treated as a self-contained piece. Perhaps a movie is derivative and borrows plot elements from things that came before, and that will be reflected in the actual text of the review, but when it comes to star ratings, I'm more interested in two questions: "Was the movie enjoyable?" and "Did the movie achieve what it was attempting to do artistically?" Both of these things taken into account, and processed through my subjective tastes and interests will constitute the final star rating.

Here's what each star rating ultimately boils down to:

1 Star

A 1-star review is the absolute floor of the rating system. This is a movie that was agony to watch. A movie that didn't deliver on what it promised on any level. Something you never want to see again.

2 Stars

A 2-star movie is one that did some things right, but overall is mediocre at best. You probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but you didn't absolutely despise it.

3 Stars

3 stars indicate that a movie is enjoyable. You liked the movie, and you might even recommend it to people. It has its flaws, and it isn't quite "high art", but it does its job, and you wouldn't be against seeing it again.

4 Stars

 

A 4-star movie is something you really enjoyed. You'd definitely recommend it to friends, and you were excited and engrossed by the experience of watching it.

5 Stars

This is a movie that is quite possibly perfect. It blew your mind and, given a decade or two, might be considered a classic. You would recommend it to anyone and consider it your duty as a human being to sing its praises to all within the sound of your voice.

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