Geographic Midpoint Calculator
Find the center point of two or more locations on Earth. Enter latitude and longitude pairs, one per line, and the calculator returns the geographic midpoint, computed as the center of gravity of the points on the globe, together with the simple average of the coordinates and the center of their bounding box. Ideal for choosing a meeting point, placing a map center or summarizing a set of sites.
Frequently asked questions
How is the geographic midpoint calculated?
Each point is converted to a three-dimensional position on a unit sphere, the positions are averaged, and the average is projected back to latitude and longitude. This center of gravity accounts for the curvature of the Earth and works across the poles and the date line.
What is the midpoint of exactly two points?
For two points the geographic midpoint lies halfway along the great circle between them, the shortest route over the Earth's surface. It is generally not the same as averaging the two latitudes and the two longitudes.
What is the average of coordinates?
It is the arithmetic mean of all latitudes and of all longitudes. It is close to the geographic midpoint for points in a small area, but it goes wrong for points far apart or on both sides of the 180th meridian.
What is the center of the bounding box?
It is the point halfway between the northernmost and southernmost latitude and between the westernmost and easternmost longitude. It marks the middle of the rectangle that contains all points, which is useful for centering a map.
Which result should I use?
Use the geographic midpoint for a fair meeting point or a true center of the locations. The bounding box center suits map framing, and the plain average is mainly useful for comparison with other tools.
How many locations can I enter?
Between 2 and 10,000 coordinate lines, each with latitude and longitude in decimal degrees separated by a comma or a space. Blank lines are skipped.
Can I weight the locations?
Every line counts once. To give a location more weight, for example by the number of people traveling from it, repeat its line as often as needed.
Why do I get an error for opposite points?
Two points exactly on opposite sides of the Earth, or a set that balances out perfectly, have no unique center, because many points are then equally central. The calculator reports this case instead of returning an arbitrary location.
Is the midpoint the point with the shortest total travel distance?
Not exactly. The center of gravity minimizes the sum of squared straight-line distances, while the point with the smallest plain sum of travel distances, the geometric median, can differ for unevenly spread locations.
How precise are the results?
Coordinates are shown with six decimal places, roughly 0.1 meters. That is far finer than the uncertainty of a typical address or GPS fix, so the last digits mainly help when copying the result into other tools.