Calculate the center point of multiple latitude/longitude coordinate pairs

Question

Thanks! Here is a C# version of OP's solutions using degrees. It utilises the System.Device.Location.GeoCoordinate class

    public static GeoCoordinate GetCentralGeoCoordinate(
        IList<GeoCoordinate> geoCoordinates)
    {
        if (geoCoordinates.Count == 1)
        {
            return geoCoordinates.Single();
        }

        double x = 0;
        double y = 0;
        double z = 0;

        foreach (var geoCoordinate in geoCoordinates)
        {
            var latitude = geoCoordinate.Latitude * Math.PI / 180;
            var longitude = geoCoordinate.Longitude * Math.PI / 180;

            x += Math.Cos(latitude) * Math.Cos(longitude);
            y += Math.Cos(latitude) * Math.Sin(longitude);
            z += Math.Sin(latitude);
        }

        var total = geoCoordinates.Count;

        x = x / total;
        y = y / total;
        z = z / total;

        var centralLongitude = Math.Atan2(y, x);
        var centralSquareRoot = Math.Sqrt(x * x + y * y);
        var centralLatitude = Math.Atan2(z, centralSquareRoot);

        return new GeoCoordinate(centralLatitude * 180 / Math.PI, centralLongitude * 180 / Math.PI);
    }

The simple approach of just averaging them has weird edge cases with angles when they wrap from 359' back to 0'.

A much earlier question on SO asked about finding the average of a set of compass angles.

An expansion of the approach recommended there for spherical coordinates would be:

• Convert each lat/long pair into a unit-length 3D vector.
• Sum each of those vectors
• Normalise the resulting vector
• Convert back to spherical coordinates

I found this post very useful so here is the solution in PHP. I've been using this successfully and just wanted to save another dev some time.

/**
 * Get a center latitude,longitude from an array of like geopoints
 *
 * @param array data 2 dimensional array of latitudes and longitudes
 * For Example:
 * $data = array
 * (
 *   0 = > array(45.849382, 76.322333),
 *   1 = > array(45.843543, 75.324143),
 *   2 = > array(45.765744, 76.543223),
 *   3 = > array(45.784234, 74.542335)
 * );
*/
function GetCenterFromDegrees($data)
{
    if (!is_array($data)) return FALSE;

    $num_coords = count($data);

    $X = 0.0;
    $Y = 0.0;
    $Z = 0.0;

    foreach ($data as $coord)
    {
        $lat = $coord[0] * pi() / 180;
        $lon = $coord[1] * pi() / 180;

        $a = cos($lat) * cos($lon);
        $b = cos($lat) * sin($lon);
        $c = sin($lat);

        $X += $a;
        $Y += $b;
        $Z += $c;
    }

    $X /= $num_coords;
    $Y /= $num_coords;
    $Z /= $num_coords;

    $lon = atan2($Y, $X);
    $hyp = sqrt($X * $X + $Y * $Y);
    $lat = atan2($Z, $hyp);

    return array($lat * 180 / pi(), $lon * 180 / pi());
}

Very useful post! I've implemented this in JavaScript, hereby my code. I've used this successfully.

function rad2degr(rad) { return rad * 180 / Math.PI; }
function degr2rad(degr) { return degr * Math.PI / 180; }

/**
 * @param latLngInDeg array of arrays with latitude and longtitude
 *   pairs in degrees. e.g. [[latitude1, longtitude1], [latitude2
 *   [longtitude2] ...]
 *
 * @return array with the center latitude longtitude pairs in 
 *   degrees.
 */
function getLatLngCenter(latLngInDegr) {
    var LATIDX = 0;
    var LNGIDX = 1;
    var sumX = 0;
    var sumY = 0;
    var sumZ = 0;

    for (var i=0; i<latLngInDegr.length; i++) {
        var lat = degr2rad(latLngInDegr[i][LATIDX]);
        var lng = degr2rad(latLngInDegr[i][LNGIDX]);
        // sum of cartesian coordinates
        sumX += Math.cos(lat) * Math.cos(lng);
        sumY += Math.cos(lat) * Math.sin(lng);
        sumZ += Math.sin(lat);
    }

    var avgX = sumX / latLngInDegr.length;
    var avgY = sumY / latLngInDegr.length;
    var avgZ = sumZ / latLngInDegr.length;

    // convert average x, y, z coordinate to latitude and longtitude
    var lng = Math.atan2(avgY, avgX);
    var hyp = Math.sqrt(avgX * avgX + avgY * avgY);
    var lat = Math.atan2(avgZ, hyp);

    return ([rad2degr(lat), rad2degr(lng)]);
}

Javascript version of the original function

/**
 * Get a center latitude,longitude from an array of like geopoints
 *
 * @param array data 2 dimensional array of latitudes and longitudes
 * For Example:
 * $data = array
 * (
 *   0 = > array(45.849382, 76.322333),
 *   1 = > array(45.843543, 75.324143),
 *   2 = > array(45.765744, 76.543223),
 *   3 = > array(45.784234, 74.542335)
 * );
*/
function GetCenterFromDegrees(data)
{       
    if (!(data.length > 0)){
        return false;
    } 

    var num_coords = data.length;

    var X = 0.0;
    var Y = 0.0;
    var Z = 0.0;

    for(i = 0; i < data.length; i++){
        var lat = data[i][0] * Math.PI / 180;
        var lon = data[i][1] * Math.PI / 180;

        var a = Math.cos(lat) * Math.cos(lon);
        var b = Math.cos(lat) * Math.sin(lon);
        var c = Math.sin(lat);

        X += a;
        Y += b;
        Z += c;
    }

    X /= num_coords;
    Y /= num_coords;
    Z /= num_coords;

    var lon = Math.atan2(Y, X);
    var hyp = Math.sqrt(X * X + Y * Y);
    var lat = Math.atan2(Z, hyp);

    var newX = (lat * 180 / Math.PI);
    var newY = (lon * 180 / Math.PI);

    return new Array(newX, newY);
}