It occurred to me that I have lived in many places during my lifetime. This is a basic run-down of them all, giving rough locations as coordinates. I might return to it at some point and add dates, but this will do for now.

Code available here1

1. Locations

Table 1 lists the places I have lived. Let me state that it only includes places where I have lived with parents as a child and young adult (see items 1:8); and places that I have officially rented or mortgaged as an adult (items 9:end). Furthermore, if memory serves, we lived in two properties in Kuwait, two in Bahrain; and I lived in Chertsey more than once; and rented twice in Addlestone.

I have not included sofa-surfing or temporary dwellings.

Table 1 also shows the order of properties lived in, from birth to now (some 50-ish years later!)

Table 1
Places I have lived
List Address Latitude Longitude
1 Abridge, Essex 51.65145 0.1240440
2 Stansted, Essex 51.90705 0.2017505
3 Kuwait City, Kuwait 29.37971 47.9735629
4 Manama, Bahrain 26.22350 50.5822436
5 Pilgrims Hatch, Essex 51.63572 0.2945186
6 Chertsey, Surrey 51.37897 -0.5202690
7 Stradishall, Suffolk 52.13974 0.5166220
8 Cowlinge, Suffolk 52.15838 0.5069070
9 Addlestone, Surrey 51.37128 -0.4896460
10 Twickenham, Middlesex 51.43854 -0.3367110
11 Twickenham, Middlesex 51.43490 -0.3328100
12 Bedfont Green, Middlesex 51.45076 -0.4396000
13 Jaywick, Essex 51.77630 1.1190790
14 Harwich, Essex 51.93319 1.2745890
15 Harwich, Essex 51.93265 1.2750310
16 Ipswich, Suffolk 52.06867 1.1304080
17 Bath, Somerset 51.39475 -2.3887440
18 Bath, Somerset 51.39235 -2.3846390
19 Bath, Somerset 51.38103 -2.3804940

2. Interactive map

The coordinates are pin-pointed on a world map (use +/- zoom functions and left-click[hold]/drag to pan). Hover cursor over circles for labels.

3a. Static plots

Global view of places lived

The spread of locations in England

You can see that most of the places lived in England have been between \(51^{\circ}\) and \(52^{\circ}\) latitude, with a brief sojourn above the \(52nd\) parallel (although I spent around five years living in Ipswich (16)); and between \(-2.5^{\circ}\) and \(1.5^{\circ}\) longitude (quite a small area, considering).

  • The numbers represent the order in which the places were lived and coincide with Table 1 above.

It is interesting that, although numerous; and despite the huge leap between locations 2 and 5 (3 and 4 abroad, see main map above), the places lived are in relatively tight clusters suggesting that I’ve enjoyed a local familiarity for a while before needing/having to move on.

The clusters are divided across counties, as follows.

3b. Breaking down into counties:

Essex and Suffolk

Surrey and Middlesex

Somerset

There’s little point presenting a plot with three points on it, so Coordinate plot 5 below shows the locations in Surrey/Middlesex and Somerset, with the expanse between.

3c. Mean and Median locations

Mean coordinates

I thought it would be interesting to know the mean and median locations of where I have lived in the world; and in England.

Table 2 shows the mean coordinates of both the worldwide; and the England locations from Table 1. In my mind, these give an indication of where I should be living according to the mean-average coordinates of where I actually have lived.

Table 2
Average coordinates (mean)
Latitude Longitude Place
Worldwide 49.16047 5.0382022 Neuvilly en Argonne, France
England 51.67328 -0.1664685 Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire, England
Note:
Update shows new locations.
Originally: Worldwide place: Génicourt-sur-Meuse, France; England place: Cheshunt, Hertfordshire

I must admit, I quite fancy Génicourt-sur-Meuse and Neuvilly en Argonne, France. I’ve never been to either, but it sounds like it would suit me. Ironically, I worked in Cheshunt (the original location before the update!) for a fair while until I was made redundant, though I didn’t miss the daily journey from Harwich and back which became a drag after about 5 years of working for the company there.

Median coordinates

Table 3 shows the median coordinates of both the worldwide; and the England locations from Table 1.

So, technically, these will be the absolute mid-point places to live according to both options.

Table 3
Average coordinates (median)
Latitude Longitude Place
Worldwide 51.45076 0.2017505 Dartford, Kent, England
England 51.63572 0.1240440 Lambourne End, Essex, England
Note:
Update shows new locations.
Originally: World place: Upminster, Essex. England place: Stapleford Abbotts, Essex


Note. The irony of the median coordinate plot is that both locations from the worldwide and England coordinates are a stones throw from where I was born! (Shown with an asterisk on the map above). The updated ones are not that far away either!


Distances from the median locations to where I was born

So for fun, we’ll use the distm function from the geosphere package to calculate the distances between coordinates in metres (tutorial found on Statistics Globe - actually a good site and recommended for many explanations of R-functions).

Once installed and loaded, I realised I needed another variable to hold the Rush Green coordinates. Then, I found out that distm needs the longitude and latitude in that order, so had to reverse the two columns in my original mean/median variables, then combined the two new variables into one, for each.

So the calculation returns like this for Lambourne End:

##          [,1]     [,2]
## [1,]    0.000 8601.753
## [2,] 8601.753    0.000

…and this for Dartford

##          [,1]     [,2]
## [1,]     0.00 12890.21
## [2,] 12890.21     0.00

Summary

Remember the distances are in metres - I used this website (others are available!) to convert the distances into miles (not sure if the site specifies US miles as others have done, or my preferred UK miles, however…)

It’s enough to give a guide to how close Rush Green is…

to the median of places in England:

Lambourne End = 8.60Km (5.34 miles) away. Originally: Stapleford Abbotts = 8.73Km (5.43 miles)

to the median of worldwide locations:

Dartford = 12.89Km (8.01 miles) away. Originally: Upminster = 5.58Km (3.47 miles)

This has been an interesting project - thanks for reading. I might take it further one day and tell the story of each place and why I moved so many times. I’m sure that the average moves during a lifetime is far fewer than what I have achieved here. Does it mean I haven’t settled anywhere? Or is it acting on circumstances? A mixture of both? Why have I laid my hat in; and called so many different locations, home?

(Social) psychology would describe these transitional moments of upheaval as ruptures (Zittoun, 2006, p. 5), since they can cause stress and disruption to ‘normal’ life (whatever that is). Maybe that explains a few things!

  1. Feel free to use it and change details to suit your needs - or improve it (if you do, please email me to say how you did it better - we’re all learning, right?)↩︎