The notion of asymptotic centre of a bounded sequence of points in a uniformly convex Banach space was introduced by Edelstein in order to prove, in a quasi-constructive way, fixed point theorems for nonexpansive and similar maps.Similar theorems have also been proved by, for example, adding a compactness hypothesis to the restrictions on the domain of the maps. In such proofs, which are generally less constructive, it may be possible to weaken the uniform convexity hypothesis.In this paper Edelstein's technique is extended by defining a notion of asymptotic centre for an arbitrary set of nonempty bounded subsets of a metric space. It is shown that when the metric space is uniformly rotund and complete, and when the set of bounded subsets is a filter base, this filter base has a unique asymptotic centre. This fact is used to derive, in a uniform way, several fixed point theorems for nonexpansive and similar maps, both single-valued and many-valued.Though related to known results, each of the fixed point theorems proved is either stronger than the corresponding known result, or has a compactness hypothesis replaced by the assumption of uniform convexity.