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The ‘Center’ of North America
Two North Dakota towns—Rugby and Robinson—have both laid claim to being the geographic center of North America. But science is telling a different story. Peter Rogerson, a geography professor at the University at Buffalo in New York, recently decided to weigh in on the dispute using a computer program he developed in 2015. It works by plotting 30,000 points on a map, then running the coordinates through a complex equation to calculate their center. According to Rogerson, the true geographic center of continental North America is neither Rugby nor Robinson. It’s a city coincidentally called Center, North Dakota. How did the city—so-named because it’s at the center of Oliver County—react to news of its newfound status? “My assistant called the mayor [of Center], and he was pretty surly,” Rogerson says, “because he thought it was a prank.”