Location, location, location

Here's what can happen when you have an inquiring mind, and a fondness for making lists, like I do.

My sister-in-law, Renee, is finishing up her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she and my brother Michael live. My Mom lives in Portland, OR, where I'm from although I now live in S Florida. My brother Tim, his wife and kids live in San Jose, CA.

Renee was offered what seems like a very good job teaching philosophy at a college in the Chicago area. (This bothers my Mom quite a bit, since they'll be moving so far away. It's like a good news/bad news joke. On the one hand, they're really lucky she got such a nice job, let alone any teaching job. On the other hand, it's in the Chicago area, so Mom will see them a lot less than she'd like.)

So one day I started wondering where exactly Chicago is in relation to Hollywood FL, Portland OR, Seattle WA, and San Jose CA. I found a couple of lists on Infoplease that gives that information, but it lists the cities in alphabetical order.

US & Canadian cities

So I listed those cities in order from North to South. Then I started wondering where those cities are, North to South, in terms of other cities, both in the US & Canada and elsewhere. Infoplease has another list, also in alphabetical order.

Outside the US & Canada

Then I wondered what were the most Northerly and Southerly cities in the world I could find information about.

The result?

My list of latitudes & longitudes


SMC