MapBench author profile

Aladdin

Founder & Editor of MapBench

Aladdin leads MapBench's tool direction, editorial standards, methodology review and corrections process. His focus is practical web mapping: making geographic calculations understandable, reproducible and honest about their limitations.

Areas of focus

Coordinate systems, geodesic distance, radius and area measurement, open map data, routing concepts, GPS/map file formats, browser-based GIS workflows and geographic reference content.

Editorial responsibility

Reviews how MapBench explains formulas, source data, limitations and uncertainty. Valid factual or calculation errors are corrected through the site's published corrections policy.

How MapBench content is reviewed

MapBench does not treat a calculated number as automatically authoritative. Tool pages identify the method behind the result, distinguish estimates from official data, and point users to primary or professional sources when a question is legal, surveying, engineering, emergency-related or otherwise high stakes.

For original studies, the dataset scope and ranking method are stated explicitly so readers can reproduce the analysis and understand what the result does—and does not—claim.

Methodology Data sources Editorial policy

Original studies

Studies published under Aladdin's editorial oversight.

The Most Isolated Major Cities in MapBench's World-City Dataset

2026-10-13

Which Major Cities Have the Most Other Major Cities Within 500 km?

2026-10-13

Which Major Cities Have Another Major City Closest to Their Antipode?

2026-10-13

The Closest Major-City Pairs in the MapBench Dataset

2026-10-14

The Farthest Major-City Pairs in the MapBench Dataset

2026-10-14

Which Major Cities Sit Closest to the Equator?

2026-10-14

Which Major Cities Sit Closest to the Prime Meridian?

2026-10-14

Which Major Cities Have the Largest Dataset Population Within 1,000 km?

2026-10-14

Largest Country Geometries in the MapBench World Dataset

2026-10-14

Which Countries Span the Most Longitude?

2026-10-14

Which Countries Have the Northernmost Geographic Centroids?

2026-10-14

Selected guides

Full Moon Moonrise Times for 100 US Cities (2026–2027)

12 min read

Radius vs. Drive Time vs. Straight-Line Distance: Which Map Should You Use?

9 min read

How Far Is Every US State Capital From the Coast?

9 min read

How to Measure Land Area on a Map: Acres, Hectares and Square Feet

10 min read

How to Choose a Fair Meeting Point Between Two or More Places

8 min read

Map Projections Explained: Why Every Flat World Map Distorts Something

10 min read

Corrections and contact

If you find a calculation issue, source problem or factual error, contact MapBench at contact@mapbench.site. Technical tool issues can be sent to support@mapbench.site.