Williams, AZ could not be located on Nuvi 750

But it was after Williams, VA

Yeah, I can't find it either by city name but I was able to find it in google maps with the coordinates of 35.250228,-112.190688

I just checked on my 750 and it can be found in a city search. The list of the various Williams' cities throughout the USA seems random--they're not alphabetical on my machine and they're not ranked by "nearest to me".

Then again, maybe it's our nepharious motive here in Flagstaff to make **us** the primary gateway to The Big Ditch rather than Williams.

Williams Arizona came up fine on my Nuvi 750. It was on the 7th page - right after Williams, VA. It showed as being 1935 miles from my home location in Maryland. I too then checked lodging and found many, many with the Grand Canyon name.

I used the near mode on my gps and found it ok.At first it appears to be in alphabetical order but it is not.Data based on closest to you so for me it shows AZ after VA on the listing.

Hi again,

After rereading your message, I thought I'd try a "Search Near" as you did, using "My current location". Williams properly came up in order of distance from me, 29.9 miles away.

It's shown on the map but not the index on my 650. Probably an oversite... The people of Williams would be in outrage if they knew!
Actually Williams is a neat community. The Grand Canyon Railroad starts there and runs to the south rim and back.

Found it listed after Williams VA.

Yeah, I found it too. However, I am a bit confused, it isn't in any kind of order. Mine is stuck between...

Williams,TX @ 1275 Miles
Williams,VA @ 71.5
Williams,AZ @ 1923
Williams,CA @ 2396

In the past, I knew that it would be alpha ordered because it would be like...

Williams...then
Williams Bay
Williams Cabin

etc.

So now, I am not so sure

This is one that I cannot figure out. The cities are listed in some order known only to the Garmin programmers.

It doesn't seem to be alphabetical nor by proximity.

Searching using the "Near" feature and entering Flagstaff as the "near" location it comes up, but just doing a city search it didn't come up the first time I tried it. Then the next time it did show on the list, in the same order as others have noted, after Williams VA.

Like the others, I have no idea why the city searches seem to work differently from POI searches.

Searches using "Cities" or "Near, A Different City" show results that seem to be in alphabetical groups of states/provinces.

Here are some examples:

• Homer (2)
  CA,IN,IA,KS,KY,MN,ND,OH,OH,OK,TX
  AK,GA,IL,LA,MI,NE,NY
• Ottawa (3)
  IA,KY,MI,MN,OK,PA,WV
  ON
  IL,KS,OH
• Washington (5)
  CA,CT,ME,MA,MI,MN,MS,NH,RI,SC,TX,VT,WI
  DC,IL,IN,MO,OH,PA
  IA,NJ,NC,UT
  AR,GA,KS,KY,LA,NE,OK,VA,WV
  CBA (Argentina)
• Springfield (8)
  NB,NS,ON
  AL,AL,AL,AR,CA,FL... TX,USVI,VA,VA,WV,WI
  IA,NJ,NC,UT
  IL,MA,MO,OH,OR,PA,VA
  MB
  NJ,TN
  FL,MI
  CO,GA,KY,LA,MN,NE,SC,SD,VT

...and the "alphabetical" is sometimes mysterious, as in IN (Indiana) followed by IA (Iowa) or ME (Maine) followed by MA (Massachusetts).

Could "alphabetical" grouping be by state name vs abbreviation?
And why are there multiple groups??

As MM said, only Garmin knows :?

Let me throw out a W.A.G...it may be the cartographers using census bureau listings of places sorted by region and/or population...???

That is apparently correct.

And why would a given state be listed in multiple groupings (e.g. FL in two different groupings in the Springfield example you showed)?

I think that they're in order by size of city/town. Smallest to largest. That's the way it seems on my sp7200.

We lived in Flagstaff from 1964 to 1967. We never went through Williams to get to the Grand Canyon.

By the way, when I searched Nearby, the first three places were Williams, AL at 539.3, 683.8, and 721.9 miles. Several of the states were listed twice, but AL was the only one listed three times.

Hummm...interesting idea. If true, what a dumb way to do it. They might as well do by how many ppl have GPSrs.

When searching for a NEARBY city/town, my sp7200 shows them in order of distance.

When searching for a PARTICULAR city/town, it shows them smallest to biggest with states in alphebetical order. I.E.

Small towns:
Greer, AZ
Greer, ID
Greer, IL
Greer, MO
Greer, OH
Greer, WV
Greer, WV (2?)

Then larger city:
Greer, SC

Does this make sense?

It would be nice if the GPS would list the cities that are closer first. I often have to look at several pages before finding the city I am looking for.

I typed it in my nuvi 360 and it was top of the list. But I do live in AZ and shows it 134 miles north of me. Now you know were I am.

Your explanation makes sense, but not the logic behind it. What I mean, yes I understand what you are saying, but it makes no sense for programmers to do it that way. It should either be by distance or by name IMHO.

I'm guessing that when you do a search for a PARTICULAR city/town, the gps doesn't take into account where it's at, at a certain point.

When you search for a NEARBY city/town, it does take account.

But, either way, once you get the hang of how the system works, it's really pretty easy to find what you're looking for. I do this at least once a day, every day.

I totally agree with you and I'd bet it was not done intentionally -- unless one of the programmers was Casey Stengel, who once told his players to "Line up alphabetically, according to height."

It came up just fine on my 750 and I bought it last month.

Well, at least I am not alone in this strange phenomenon. Every other city came up fine on the trip, but this town did not. There were at least 20 other towns I queried. I'll have to check the 7th page like others found, but that does seem a little nuts considering it wouldn't come up on the first couple pages even when I was in the town.

I recall it started going into other "Williams" names areas that contained things like others mentioned like "bay" after the name, so I think I stopped looking after that screen.

Thanks for all the responses. Maybe a developer for Garmin is reading this and can look into it

There are two Springfields in FL, one a suburb of Jacksonville, one on the Gulf coast near Panama City.

Streets and Trips puts it at 35.2493 -112.19037

I'll search for it on my 2820 later today.