Pat Flannery wrote:
David Spain wrote:

Pat Flannery writes:

As far as pointless things (otherwise known as exciting tourist
destinations)
there's this, off to my northwest:
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11486


Well, Balta ND appearently also has a claim. Using MapQuest and zooming
out a bit, I feel they might be right. Next trip out west I'll take
photos using my GPS to find the actual spot....

It would be really trick to find the center because you would have to
measure the distance from the north to south shores and east to west
shores across the whole continent and see where the two meandering
half-point lines crossed. A small bay on one coast moves the center
point at that latitude or longitude half its depth toward the other coast.
Also, where does North America end on its south end? The Panama Canal?

The Panama Canal is a potential delimiter only if divide the Americas
into North and South without having Central America. The way I was
taught it (I'm not sure how to which point this is universally accepted)
North America is Canada, the US and most of Mexico, the part of Mexico
east of the isthmus of Tehuantepec (that is the thinnest part of Mexico)
is in Central America.

Even if you do accept the above as the definition of the southern
limit of North America finding the exact centre of North America
is a daunting task. There are some of the shores of the arctic which
are poorly mapped and for which it is not obvious what would really
be land and what is merely dirty ice that doesn't quite melt in the
summer.


Alain Fournier