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Comment by mitko | Hacker News Reader

Another example of how real world data is always messier than a neat model:

Vatican is entirely encircled in Rome, therefore any area outside Vatican is closer to Rome than the Vatican, yet if we look at them as point sources, as this map does, you see a lot of other area closer to Vatican.

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> Vatican is entirely encircled in Rome, therefore any area outside Vatican is closer to Rome than the Vatican

this is only true if the rule is "any point inside the area". if the rule is "any point on the border", then your comment fails here:

    +--rome-border
    |
    |
    | x (closer to vatican border)
    |
    +--vatican-border

The official city limits of Rome extend quite far out into the countryside (all the way to Ostia), so by this reckoning, I think the Vatican area would encompass the lion's share of the buildings/population.

Amen. I work in geophysical computing where there is no such thing as neat data.

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