The Geographic Center of Philadelphia

• Philadelphia Inquirer article [September, 2004]
• Mathematical solution [December, 2004]
• Official Philly boundary data [thanks Bangbo Hu! (VU Geography Dept)] from
  Pennsylvania's official geospatial information
  clearinghouse website: http://www.pasda.psu.edu/:
  
  • http://www.pasda.psu.edu/summary.cgi/philacity/phila-city_limits.xml [summary]
  • http://www.pasda.psu.edu/documents.cgi/philacity/phila-city_limits.xml
    [download link for zip file plus info, contact person, rectangle longitude/latitude coordinates]
  • Data file opens with citrixweb:
    Academic Applications/Geography/ArcView v3.3:
    Open with a New View when window pops up;
    Yes to Add data now;
    Open data file city_limits.shp.
    Then click on the grey square to the left of this filename in the left sidebar;
    the plus/minus buttoms for zooming are crucial to zoom into the boundary,
    plus if you click and drag a rectangle, you can zoom into a specific part of
    the boundary excluding the rest; read off the rescaled coordinates of the
    mouse crosshairs from the upper right corner of the window.
    [This will take a lot of time to select key points on the boundary and manually read them off.
    We should ask the contact person if there is a better way.]