Middle of the state zip code

[msnews.microsoft.com]

Hi,

I would like to know the zipcode that geographically in the middle (center)
of the states in the US. What is the best way of doing this? I don't want to
visually look at the map for every single state and write down the zipcode
one by one.

Is this information available somewhere?

(What I'm trying to do is finding a distance from one location (street
address level) to every state. So I thought I would use the middle of the
state as a representative of it.)

Thanks a lot.
B

[John W. Vinson]

I'm not sure what use you'll be able to make of this. If I'm in Owyhee, Nevada
and want to know how far it is to Idaho, I'm probably more interested in the
two miles up State Highway 225 to the border than I am in the 250+ miles to
the middle of the River of No Return Wilderness Area!

There may be some map experts who would have some ideas, but I don't think
that the "middle of the state" is either a well-defined or a very useful
construct, and I'm pretty sure it's not readily calculable. Good luck!
--

John W. Vinson [MVP]

[Klaus Oberdalhoff]

Hi,

if following conditions are met: you

- have knowledge of .Net
- are willing to fetch the free (border) data from other databases
- install sql server 2008 geo-datatypes
(theoretically you don't need the sql server 2008 itself for that <g>, there
is a free download)

for me it sounds easier if you try to solve your problem with the new
geospatial datatypes in SQL Server 2008 and the "intersect functions" - if i
correctly understood the Webcast from Bob Beauchemin "Using spatial data in
SQL and in clients"
(http://www.softconference.com/pass/sessionDetail.asp?SID=130823)
which i found on the 2008 PASS Community Summit site.

Maybe you can load the boarders of the countries into sqlserver find via
intersect the lat/long coordinates (of the boarder or the centre) and show
them within Mappoint <a lat/long is a lat/long>...

mfg

Klaus

[Douglas]

Perhaps you could be satisfied with the state capitals instead? They
wouldn't necessarilly be in the true center but with the exception of Alaska
I can't imagine it would make a huge difference for your purposes.

I found the capitals and their geocodes here:

http://www.xfront.com/us_states/

If you google the distance calculation and can code a little bit in Excel or
something you could do this outside of MP as well