Midpoint calculator – find the halfway point

"Where should we meet halfway?" is the classic question behind a midpoint search, but the same calculation helps to place a warehouse between customers, a meeting venue between offices, or a relay station between two sites. Add places by searching for towns and cities or by clicking on the map; the midpoint appears as an orange marker as soon as there are two, with thin lines to every place and the distance from the midpoint to each one. The panel names the nearest town to the midpoint, which is usually the practical answer to "where do we meet?". With three or more places you choose what "middle" should mean: the geographic midpoint, which is the centre of the places as seen from the centre of the Earth, or the point from which the sum of the distances to all places is as small as possible. Drag any place and the midpoint follows. Copy the midpoint's coordinates with one click, share the map with a link, or download the places and the midpoint as KML or GeoJSON.

How to use it

1. Type a town in the search box and pick it, then add a second one, or click two points on the map.
2. Read the midpoint, the nearest town and the distance to each place in the panel.
3. For three or more places, choose the geographic midpoint or the least total travel distance.
4. Copy the midpoint's coordinates, share the link, or download KML or GeoJSON.

How accurate is it?

Two places – the true halfway point

For two places the midpoint lies on the geodesic, the shortest path between them on the WGS84 ellipsoid, at exactly half its length, calculated with GeographicLib. Both places are the same distance from it to within a millimetre. A simple average of the latitudes and longitudes is not the same: between New York and London it lands about 760 km south-east of the real halfway point, because the shortest path curves north over the Atlantic.

Three or more places – two kinds of middle

The geographic midpoint is the average of the places as directions from the centre of the Earth, pushed back out to the surface. It is the usual "centre of gravity" and is pulled towards clusters of places. The least total travel distance point is the geometric median: the spot from which the distances to all places add up to the smallest sum, found by Weiszfeld's iteration with geodesic distances to within a millimetre. It is less affected by one far-away place, and when most places sit together it moves into the cluster.

Searched towns are town centres

A searched town is placed at the point GeoNames gives for it, usually the historic centre or the main square. For an exact start, such as a home or an office, zoom in and click its position on the map, or drag the numbered marker there.

Good to know

Halfway in distance is not halfway in time

The midpoint is measured as the crow flies. Roads, ferries and traffic decide where a drive is really halfway, so treat the nearest town as a suggestion and check the travel time from both sides with a route planner.

The nearest town may be small

The town list holds places with at least 15,000 inhabitants, so the town shown may be a bit further away than a village right at the midpoint. Zoom in on the map to see the villages around the orange marker.

Places on opposite sides of the Earth

Two places exactly opposite each other have no single shortest path, and places spread evenly around the globe have no geographic midpoint. The tool says so instead of guessing; move one place slightly and the midpoint appears.