A year of cache development

[+sTeamTraen]

A year ago (yesterday), I took a snapshot of the numbers of caches in over 100 states and countries.

 

I've been updating it every two months, and yesterday was the sixth update. That means that you can see exactly how your area's cache numbers have evolved over the last year.

 

You can download the numbers here:

http://nick.brown.free.fr/stuff/worldwide-cache-stats.xls

(Apologies to those of you without Excel... Google Docs and/or OpenOffice should be able to read it.)

 

In the version as you download it, the sort column is the percentage increase in the number of caches. I chose this because France does particularly well in it: no area with more caches is growing faster. (Of course, you can prove anything with statistics.) The sorted countries are limited to those with 200 or more caches (an arbitrary number), to prevent a place which went from 1 to 4 from giving weird results. Feel free to use the data to demonstrate anything you like.

 

On the second sheet of the workbook I've summarised the results by "region" (whatever that means).

 

In case you're wondering, all the numbers were obtained by simple clicking on the site. No screen scraping or other underhand methods were involved. It's quite therapeutic (on the "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" view of the world, anyway ).

[+The Hornet]

Nice figures Nick You must have too much time on your hands to put such a table together

[+sTeamTraen]

Nice figures Nick You must have too much time on your hands to put such a table together

 

It takes about 60 minutes every two months. That comes out of my cache maintenance time (shhh).

[+Kriskook]

its sad, the number of caches have more than doubled in the past year in the state I live... a direct reflection to the level of quality going the other way

[+sTeamTraen]

Bumping this thread for the latest update here.

 

In the past 18 months, the number of caches in the USA has increased by 55%; in Europe, by 110%.

 

Happy data-mining!

[+sTeamTraen]

Bump! I've updated the spreadsheet today.

[+Ladybug Kids]

Very cool! Thank you for your efforts.

 

My state is on opposite ends of the spectrum...#8 in per capita caches, #102 in caches per km^2.

[+briansnat]

Interesting, at one time NJ was #1 in caches per sq mile in the US. Massachusetts then passed NJ, and now RI and CT are at the top of the list and MA has fallen way behind.

[+NorthWes]

Very cool! Thank you for your efforts.

 

My state is on opposite ends of the spectrum...#8 in per capita caches, #102 in caches per km^2.

This is a pretty incredible snapshot of the growth of caching in various areas. I'm looking for some of Monaco's 9 caches next month...

 

Hmmm... if we left the vast tracts of land designated "wilderness" by the federal govt (and therefore off limits to cache placements)

out of the calculations, I wonder what Alaska's caches per km^2 standing would be...

[+supertbone]

Utah is number 1 in the US in caches per person, 4th overall. We have some very prolific hiders and they all seem to live in/around Springville, UT. There is always something new to go after.

[+Ike 13]

WOW this is amazing. Thank you for taking time to do this. I love data! A quick analysis shows what I already knew, SC does not have a very big caching population. Evidence to move north one state.

[+BBWolf+3Pigs]

Interesting, at one time NJ was #1 in caches per sq mile in the US. Massachusetts then passed NJ, and now RI and CT are at the top of the list and MA has fallen way behind.

 

With such a small state, we're bound to have a high cache to space ratio.

 

We actually have a dispensation from the 528' rule we're so small*.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(* no we don't, just kidding)

 

<edited for spelling>

Edited April 8, 2010 by BBWolf+3Pigs

[+rob3k]

Thanks for sharing this! Virginia recently passed the 10,000 cache hides milestone and I was curious where VA ranked as far as total hides and hides per pop among the 50 states.

 

VA is 19th in total caches, 38th in caches per 100,000 population, and 19th in caches per 1,000 km² (Unless, I messed something up.)

 

19 states hold more than 10,000 caches.

[+DeepButi]

mmmm ... Central & South America don't exist?

[+Castle Mischief]

Oh good, a huge rise in caches in Germany. That should keep them distracted.

[+sTeamTraen]

mmmm ... Central & South America don't exist?

No cultural imperialism is implied, so send me the data and I'll add it.

 

This started as a way of comparing European countries, and I added the US states, and then a few other countries for various random reasons. I figured that I had to stop somewhere before I got to the Heard and McDonald Islands.

[+DavidMac]

Wow, that's a fascinating data set. It's interesting to note that Tennessee had one of the lowest percentages of cache growth in the last year. When we moved back here I was surprised that caching had fizzled out in our area (Knoxville) - there haven't been many new hides in the last year and most of the folks I used to know are no longer in the game. We took a trip to Nashville a few weeks ago and I could swear that there are actually fewer caches in the area than there were back in the days of uncontrollable micro proliferation (2003-2004). Many of the micro series that made Nashville famous back then have been archived. There was a surge of new caches in West Tennessee from 2006-2007, but that has slowed down as well.

[+sTeamTraen]

Bumping this thread to say that I've updated the sheet (see post #1) with the numbers as of yesterday evening.

 

If somebody has a "country" (in the Groundspeak sense) with more than 250 caches that they would like to see added to the list, please let me know (in this thread). I don't propose to provide the per-state split for any more countries at this stage, though.

[+MontyFam]

This is awesome thank you!!

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Way cool, thanks Nick!

[+sTeamTraen]

Bump! I've updated the spreadsheet today. Enjoy, my little data miners!

[+Chrysalides]

Bump! I've updated the spreadsheet today. Enjoy, my little data miners!

Thank you! I was just wondering about an update last week

[+Chrysalides]

It's been more than a year. Just want to let you know we haven't forgotten you Any new updates?

[+sTeamTraen]

It's been more than a year. Just want to let you know we haven't forgotten you Any new updates?

I'm still here - just been a bit busy (see here for some of what I've been doing instead of writing stuff in the Groundspeak forums!).

 

In fact I collected the data for an update in October 2012, then apparently forgot to post it. Today I've made another one. So you can see the growth from October 2012 from today immediately, or play with the formulas to get the growth since 2011, or any previous date (see the hidden columns).

 

The spreadsheet link, as always, is here.

[+CanadianRockies]

Wow, those geocachers in Atlantic Canada (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland/Labrador) sure are prolific per capita hiders. Something in the water?

[+Chrysalides]

It's been more than a year. Just want to let you know we haven't forgotten you Any new updates?

I'm still here - just been a bit busy (see here for some of what I've been doing instead of writing stuff in the Groundspeak forums!).

Thanks for the update! I've been away from the forums for a while too.

[+narcissa]

This is really cool, thanks for updating.

[+Ma & Pa]

Wow, those geocachers in Atlantic Canada (Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland/Labrador) sure are prolific per capita hiders. Something in the water?

 

Small populations and lots of natural places to hide caches (trails, woods, logging roads, wilderness etc (Maybe except for lots of Crown land in NB where Irving has the rights to clear cut

[+Riverview CacheAways]

I am in Florida. I was wondering how Florida compared to the other most populous states. Here are some comparisons, just FYI.

 

Number of Caches as of July 9, 2014:

California (129,402)

Texas (63,520)

Florida (44,009)

New York (29,871)

 

Increase in number of caches since 2012:

 

Florida (17.3%)

California (16.7%)

New York (15.2%)

Texas (13.7%)

Rank of caches/population (of 120 countries/US states world wide with more than 200 caches):

California (52)

Texas (66)

Florida (69)

New York (88)

Rank of caches/sqkm (of 120 countries/US states world wide with more than 200 caches):

 

California (25)

Florida (27)

New York (31)

Texas (63)

[+bflentje]

This

 

Number of Caches as of July 9, 2014:

California (129,402)

Texas (63,520)

Florida (44,009)

New York (29,871)

 

versus this

 

Rank of caches/sqkm (of 120 countries/US states world wide with more than 200 caches):

 

California (25)

Florida (27)

New York (31)

Texas (63)

 

doesn't make sense to me.

Edited July 16, 2014 by bflentje

[+frinklabs]

This

 

Number of Caches as of July 9, 2014:

California (129,402)

Texas (63,520)

Florida (44,009)

New York (29,871)

 

versus this

 

Rank of caches/sqkm (of 120 countries/US states world wide with more than 200 caches):

 

California (25)

Florida (27)

New York (31)

Texas (63)

 

doesn't make sense to me.

 

Can you be more specific?

 

The first is ordered by, and shows a count of total caches in the state, while the second is ordered by and shows where in the ranking of regions by cache density the corresponding states fall.

[+bflentje]

This

 

Number of Caches as of July 9, 2014:

California (129,402)

Texas (63,520)

Florida (44,009)

New York (29,871)

 

versus this

 

Rank of caches/sqkm (of 120 countries/US states world wide with more than 200 caches):

 

California (25)

Florida (27)

New York (31)

Texas (63)

 

doesn't make sense to me.

 

Can you be more specific?

 

The first is ordered by, and shows a count of total caches in the state, while the second is ordered by and shows where in the ranking of regions by cache density the corresponding states fall.

 

I am quite capable of reading the headings as that's why I am confused. How can California have twice as many caches as Texas but the Texas cache density is larger, especially considering the land mass of Texas is almost twice that of California? Maybe I have not yet had enough coffee this morning.

[+cheech gang]

It does not say Texas cache density is larger. It says Texas (63rd) ranks way below California (25th) in cache density. Or I am the one reading it wrong.

[+frinklabs]

This

 

Number of Caches as of July 9, 2014:

California (129,402)

Texas (63,520)

Florida (44,009)

New York (29,871)

 

versus this

 

Rank of caches/sqkm (of 120 countries/US states world wide with more than 200 caches):

 

California (25)

Florida (27)

New York (31)

Texas (63)

 

doesn't make sense to me.

 

Can you be more specific?

 

The first is ordered by, and shows a count of total caches in the state, while the second is ordered by and shows where in the ranking of regions by cache density the corresponding states fall.

 

I am quite capable of reading the headings as that's why I am confused. How can California have twice as many caches as Texas but the Texas cache density is larger, especially considering the land mass of Texas is almost twice that of California? Maybe I have not yet had enough coffee this morning.

 

I have had way too much coffee (that noise in my head isn't bothering you?)

 

Meanwhile, Wikipedia says the areas in square kilometers are

 

CA 423,970

TX 696,241

 

So Texas is 1.6 times as large as California

 

Does that help?

[+Chrysalides]

Second gives rank, not cache density. Smaller number is higher rank. Texas has fewer caches and larger area than California, so it is ranked behind California. When in doubt, open the original document.