Interestingly enough, the mean center of population for NY State is only about 9 miles from the NJ border. Given NYC's location, not suprising. I wonder if there are any states with centers of population closer to the border than that. Given NY's geometry, if NYC continues to grow relative to upstate, I could imagine the center of population of the state actually being outside of NY State boundaries.
It's also possible in the past the NJ's state center of population might have been in NY - if Newark and Northern NJ were more relatively populous, I think that the mean center of population might be in Staten Island or the NY-NJ harbor.
After a brief search, Hawaii's is in the ocean between O'ahu and Moloka'i. DC's might be the closest to the state border (about 3.1 miles) but still just about directly in the center of the DC polygon.
For Delaware, I eyeball the distance from the center of population to the nearest border (again NJ) at maybe three miles. But Delaware's so small that I feel like that doesn't count; something like (distance to border)/(square root of state area) might be worth looking at.
Definitely-would want to normalize distance by total state size, your formula works. I'm pretty sure NY would be the winner here, although Alaska might also be close by this metric.
For oregon the population center is almost exactly Detroit. There is a large population in the willamette valley south of portland (and bend is captured by this too).
for those interested: the mean center of population for the US is a county road somewhere between Springfield and St. Louis, Missouri. https://goo.gl/maps/nSt8tZKGvhcsXqieA
If you wanted to place a shipping facility that could provide the fastest delivery to the most people in a given state, you could try putting it at the population center.
It's relatively easy to calculate, and does show in a simple map something about the very complex internal immigration history of our country. But, if it were really hard to determine, it is not soooo important that we would be likely to bother.
I thought they would already be marked on Google Maps, but they are not. It doesn't seem possible to add them even as a Tourist destination either. Interesting.
I'm able to suggest adding them after entering a name, setting a category (e.g. Tourist Attraction), and clicking "update location on map" and not actually moving it (e.g. reset).
You’ll find something very interesting about the mean center of population in the US (Texas County, MO). It’s the point from which the Delta wave of the pandemic emanated.
It's also possible in the past the NJ's state center of population might have been in NY - if Newark and Northern NJ were more relatively populous, I think that the mean center of population might be in Staten Island or the NY-NJ harbor.
It's much closer to Salem and Bend than it is Portland, for instance.
Do an animated video of a US map, where the mean center of population for each state moves around every 10 years.
https://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/570
The largest shift appears to be 1850-1860 - perhaps due to the California Gold Rush?
San Diego -> Dallas is a tiny northern move, though.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2020/geo/geogr...
https://covidestim.org/