ingwer

geocaching stats
for europe
as per 2007 01 01

auf deutsch


where in europe does geocaching happen the most? here is an absolute ranking: number of geocaches (acc. to geocaching.com website on january 1st, 2007):


europe’s top 10 according to number of caches | maps on this page: world66.com

rank
country
no. of geocaches
on 2007 01 01
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
1
Germany
27,007
2
United Kingdom
15,060
3
Sweden

6,542

4 Norway
3,397
5 Netherlands
3,100
6 Czech Republic
3,069
7 Switzerland
3,052
8 Denmark
2,787
9 Finland
2,770
10 Austria
2,560
11 Belgium
1,755
12 France
1,591
13 Spain
1,250
14 Italy
974
15 Portugal
794
16 Hungary
672
17 Slovakia
606
18 Ireland
591
19 Estonia
492
20 Greece
304
21 Poland
229
22 Luxembourg
140
geocaching

a ranking (like the above one) does not say much – bigger countries (= more inhabitants) will have more caches. therefore in the following list, the number of inhabitants is included:


europe’s top 10 according to population (per capita)

rank
country
total of
geocaches
on 2007 01 01
population
(millions)
caches per
1000
inhabitants
1 cache for
every ...
inhabitants
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
1
Norway
3,397
4.4
0.772
1,295
2
Sweden

6,542

9.0
0.727
1,376
3
Finland

2,770

5.2
0.533
1,877
4 Denmark
2,787
5.4
0.516
1,937
5 Switzerland
3,052
7.0
0.436
2,293
6 Estonia
492
1.4
0.351
2,845
7 Germany
27,007
82.5
0.327
3,055
8 Austria
2,560
8.1
0.316
3,164
9 Czech Republic
3,069
10.2
0.301
3,323
10 Luxembourg
140
0.5
0.280
3,571
11 United Kingdom
15,060
59.7
0.252
3,965
12 Iceland
65
0.3
0.217
4,615
13 Netherlands
3,100
16.3
0.190
5,258
14 Belgium
1,755
10.4
0.169
5,925
15 Ireland
591
4.0
0.148
6,768
16 Slovakia
606
5.4
0.112
8,912
17 Cyprus
75
0.7
0.107
9,333
18 Andorra
7
0.07
0.091
10,989
19 Portugal
794
10.5
0.076
13,225
geocaching

it is quite astonishing: scandinavia is europe’s heart of geocaching! the cache coverage in sweden is double as high as in germany (country with most caches). there is much more going on in germanic speaking countries than in romanic speaking ones: there is not much activity in france (with 0.026 caches per 1000 inhabitants), spain (0.029), and italy (0.015).

maybe this is because the geocaching.com website is available only in english. speakers of a germanic language generally know english quite well. it is interesting to observe that in countries with more that one language (as switzerland and belgium), the cache density is higher on the germanic-speaking side (to be seen on google maps). language access is an issue for the global progress of geocaching.

some countries with statistic anomaly are not listed above, as in countries with less than 100,000 inhabitants or very few caches there can easily occur extreme distortions. here are two other top-five candidates:

real
rank
country
total of
geocaches
population
caches per
1000
inhabitants
1 cache for
every ...
persons
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
1
Vatican
2
253
7.905
127
4
Liechtenstein

19

34,905
0.544
1,837
geocaching

so, after all, sweden and norway are the winners of both stats. in those countries, geocaching holidays may be a rewarding experience. those two countries will most probably be the first to hit the "1 cache per 1000 inhabitants" mark in europe. california is already there: 1 cache for every 967 inhabitants. country-wise canada and usa have got the highest per-capita geocache rate (see below).

following big/important countries have quite a "backlog demand" (lots to catch up):

country
no. of geocaches
on 2007 01 01
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
Argentina
45
Brazil
96
India

24

Japan
651
China
112
South Korea
111
Russia
41
geocaching

it seems that also these countries would language-wise need a better access to geocaching resp. geocaching.com. all the non-european countries with most activity are english-speaking:

world-wide rank
country
total of
geocaches
on 2007 01 01
population (millions)
caches per
1000
inhabitants
1 cache for
every ...
persons
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
geocaching
1 Canada

26,178

32.4
0.808
1237
2
USA
222,985
300.9
0.741
1349
Australia

8,646

20.5
0.421
2371
New Zealand
2,520
4.1
0.614
1628
geocaching

the worldwide number of geocaches (all types) on january 1st, 2007 was 346,000.

more stats: cache density (caches per area)

complete stats as excel file: geocaching stats 2007





© 2007 ernies / ingwer.ch | you can freely republish this information if you mention this source (please let us know the web link or send us a copy of the printed matter).
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(updated 2007 03 08)

ernies’ geocaching pages (german)