Jump to content

Cache in each county in the USA?


Recommended Posts

There is one county in USA that there is no cache inside the county (outsiders arent allow in the county anyway), but theres a puzzle cache there but the cache itself is not inside the county line.

 

Its Kalawao County, Hawaii. Google is your friend of why outsiders arent allow in the county.

Link to comment

There is one county in USA that there is no cache inside the county (outsiders arent allow in the county anyway), but theres a puzzle cache there but the cache itself is not inside the county line.

 

Its Kalawao County, Hawaii. Google is your friend of why outsiders arent allow in the county.

 

Are you sure that is the only county without a cache in it? :unsure:

You know...just wondering how you arrived at that conclusion.

Link to comment

There is one county in USA that there is no cache inside the county (outsiders arent allow in the county anyway), but theres a puzzle cache there but the cache itself is not inside the county line.

 

Its Kalawao County, Hawaii. Google is your friend of why outsiders arent allow in the county.

 

Wow, interesting. Those huge cliffs could make D5 caches. However, it's been a place for those with leprosy.

Link to comment

There is one county in USA that there is no cache inside the county (outsiders arent allow in the county anyway), but theres a puzzle cache there but the cache itself is not inside the county line.

 

Its Kalawao County, Hawaii. Google is your friend of why outsiders arent allow in the county.

 

Are you sure that is the only county without a cache in it? :unsure:

You know...just wondering how you arrived at that conclusion.

I read that post as SwineFlew identifying that there's at least one county without a cache. He didn't say "only one county".

Link to comment

I did some checking of all the Borough and Census Area of Alaska. (They arent call counties up there)

 

Whats confusing is that some site said 27 and other will say 29. I will stick with 27 due to this challenge cache. It never been done. Its very difficult it seems. <_<

 

 

I will know by tomorrow night if there is a cache is all 29 borough/census area.

 

At this point, I cant really say there is a cache is every "counties" I see on Wikipedia site, not sure why the CO narrowed it down to 27.

Edited by SwineFlew
Link to comment

I doubt this has ever been done. Only a few people have done the Texas all counties challenge and it takes like over 3,000 miles of driving or something insane like that to complete.

I believe its more than that.I heard a guy put around 30k on his truck just do the challenge. The state is huge for sure, but the counties are small.

 

I need to add, I dont think the whole USA counties had been done since nobody finished the Alaska challenge.

Edited by SwineFlew
Link to comment

Is there an active cache in every county? If so, is there a cacher who has gotten at least one in every county? Anybody really close?

 

The self-proclaimed experts at Yahoo answers can't even seem to agree, but there might be 3,077 Yes, that takes into account Louisiana calling them parishes, and Alaska calling them Borough's. Independent Cities? I don't know.

 

Well, Alamogul is the number 1 cacher in the world, is American, of course, and he's really stepped it up as of late; will hit 100,000 finds this year. My guess is he's not even close, maybe 2,000? I've not known him to find a cache in my County, or any of the surrounding ones, and he did attend the Geowoodstock in NW Pa. a couple years ago 100 miles away. I dunno, someone ask him for his myfinds PQ, and we'll parse it. :lol:

Link to comment

Ok, I found one of top county finder.

 

Hes IndyMagicMan. Sound be over 2033 Counties! (the info is old base on what I see on the profile page)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=indymagicman

 

Another one. beejay&esskay 1774 (old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=beejay%26esskay

 

Another top county finder is webscouter. 1588 (believe its old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=webscouter.

 

 

I did more searching of how many counties there are USA. Its something like 3143 or 3142 Counties,Independent Cities, Parishes,Borough, or Unorganized Borough in the USA. There are a few oddities to be considered. I will say its not easy to get a true total. I have no idea if theres a cache in every one of those 3143 or 3142.

Link to comment

Is there an active cache in every county? If so, is there a cacher who has gotten at least one in every county? Anybody really close?

 

The self-proclaimed experts at Yahoo answers can't even seem to agree, but there might be 3,077 Yes, that takes into account Louisiana calling them parishes, and Alaska calling them Borough's. Independent Cities? I don't know.

 

Well, Alamogul is the number 1 cacher in the world, is American, of course, and he's really stepped it up as of late; will hit 100,000 finds this year. My guess is he's not even close, maybe 2,000? I've not known him to find a cache in my County, or any of the surrounding ones, and he did attend the Geowoodstock in NW Pa. a couple years ago 100 miles away. I dunno, someone ask him for his myfinds PQ, and we'll parse it. :lol:

 

Look down and see Loren S's comment. I find that person more on the "money" of the "total" count. Its very close to the total count of mygeocachingprofile.com and Find Statistics Generator (FSG for GSAK)

Link to comment

Ok, I found one of top county finder.

 

Hes IndyMagicMan. Sound be over 2033 Counties! (the info is old base on what I see on the profile page)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=indymagicman

 

Another one. beejay&esskay 1774 (old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=beejay%26esskay

 

Another top county finder is webscouter. 1588 (believe its old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=webscouter.

 

 

I did more searching of how many counties there are USA. Its something like 3143 or 3142 Counties,Independent Cities, Parishes,Borough, or Unorganized Borough in the USA. There are a few oddities to be considered. I will say its not easy to get a true total. I have no idea if theres a cache in every one of those 3143 or 3142.

 

I thought I was up there with 453/3142 Counties. I guess not.

Link to comment

Ok, I found one of top county finder.

 

Hes IndyMagicMan. Sound be over 2033 Counties! (the info is old base on what I see on the profile page)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=indymagicman

 

Another one. beejay&esskay 1774 (old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=beejay%26esskay

 

Another top county finder is webscouter. 1588 (believe its old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=webscouter.

 

 

I did more searching of how many counties there are USA. Its something like 3143 or 3142 Counties,Independent Cities, Parishes,Borough, or Unorganized Borough in the USA. There are a few oddities to be considered. I will say its not easy to get a true total. I have no idea if theres a cache in every one of those 3143 or 3142.

 

I realized you can look up the Counties found for any registered account holder at http://project-gc.com/Home/Overview You have to authorize it to access your Geocaching.com account. Do it, this is not a problem, this is a "trusted partner" who is allowed to use the Geocaching.com API. And believe me, they don't give that privilege out to very many developers. :laughing:

 

Then to see the number of Counties cached in for any user, you have to do it under the guise of comparing your stats with them. The numbers seem on the low side by about 50 for both Webscouter. and IndyMagicMan. And Alamogul has only cached in about 700 Counties. Slacker. :D

Link to comment

Ok, I found one of top county finder.

 

Hes IndyMagicMan. Sound be over 2033 Counties! (the info is old base on what I see on the profile page)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=indymagicman

 

Another one. beejay&esskay 1774 (old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=beejay%26esskay

 

Another top county finder is webscouter. 1588 (believe its old info)

 

http://www.geocaching.com/profile/?u=webscouter.

 

 

I did more searching of how many counties there are USA. Its something like 3143 or 3142 Counties,Independent Cities, Parishes,Borough, or Unorganized Borough in the USA. There are a few oddities to be considered. I will say its not easy to get a true total. I have no idea if theres a cache in every one of those 3143 or 3142.

 

I realized you can look up the Counties found for any registered account holder at http://project-gc.com/Home/Overview You have to authorize it to access your Geocaching.com account. Do it, this is not a problem, this is a "trusted partner" who is allowed to use the Geocaching.com API. And believe me, they don't give that privilege out to very many developers. :laughing:

 

Then to see the number of Counties cached in for any user, you have to do it under the guise of comparing your stats with them. The numbers seem on the low side by about 50 for both Webscouter. and IndyMagicMan. And Alamogul has only cached in about 700 Counties. Slacker. :D

I emailed the owner of that site last night and he gave me a list of top counties finds. But its not a good list because its off a lot and I believe it got something to do with archived caches. However, the good news of the list is that it gave me something to work with.

 

On his feedback page it said this:

 

Missing coordinates on archived caches

Due to the fact that the Geocaching.com LIVE API doesn't include coordinates for archived caches, we are missing a lot of those. With the effect that we can not know in what region they are placed in if that country doesn't have region support on Geocaching.com. The same issue with counties, but all of them since Geocaching.com doesn't support them.

 

Need to add this, traveling caches does mess up the count as well. One county,country,state,etc per traveling cache. (if you havent found a cache in the area where the traveling cache is at.)

Edited by SwineFlew
Link to comment
"There are 3,033 organized county or county-equivalent governments in the United States according to 2007 Census of Governments."

"There are 1,987,718 active geocaches and over 5 million geocachers worldwide."

Very possible that there's a cache in every county of the United States, however I doubt someone has gotten one in every county of every state, nobody can have that much time on their hands, can they? :blink:

Link to comment

Bullfrog County wouldn't have any, if it still existed. But it doesn't.

 

Otherwise, at this point I'm guessing no others besides Kalawao. There certainly used to be, but with the growth in popularity of county challenge caches, it would appear not.

 

- Every county in the USA has some population, and other than Kalawao County, the less populated counties all seem to have caches in them.

- Other than Kalawao, no county appears to be entirely occupied by military installation, tribal lands or reservations, wilderness area, or other circumstance prohibiting geocaches.

 

I say I'm guessing because I am reaching this conclusion after only a cursory search. But I think the odds are in my favor at this point.

Link to comment

I don't think it's impossible, though. There are other organizations out there that have the goal of visiting every county (Extra Milers) or even every high point within every county. Some of 'em have to be geocachers.

LOL.. I was doing some searching this afternoon and ran across the Extra miler club and going to post the site in here and saw that you did. Yes, that site is a good one. It can be done and someone(non cacher) did it but since finding a cache in every county is harder to do because you arent just driving to the county line.

Link to comment

I haven't looked at counties in Arizona, but there may be a couple there that don't have caches as they are Indian Reservation land.

 

Well, if anyone knows of someone that has a GSAK db of the entire state, it's real easy to check. Is there a county challenge in Arizona?

Link to comment

There are 32 people who are known to have visited every county in the US. I'm at about 1200 from my travels, but I only started caching after I no longer had occasion to drive across the country very much, so I'm only at about 60 counties total (I'm in California, so they're cut a little bigger around here).

 

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/28/road-trip-completionist-meet-the-man-whos-been-to-every-county-in-the-u-s/

Link to comment

Were you to ask one of us with an Amateur Radio License, we would respond that there are 3077 counties in the US. More information and maps can be found here.

That's wrong info. The word "county" is used loosely. In VA, there are many cities that aren't part of any counties and they have to be counted. If you just go by your list, there will be plenty of holes all over USA that you never been to.

Link to comment

Were you to ask one of us with an Amateur Radio License, we would respond that there are 3077 counties in the US. More information and maps can be found here.

That's wrong info. The word "county" is used loosely. In VA, there are many cities that aren't part of any counties and they have to be counted. If you just go by your list, there will be plenty of holes all over USA that you never been to.

 

I don't understand. If I am trying to visit, find a cache, or identify all the counties why would I be concerned about an area this is NOT a county? Indeed, they may be "holes" in the map, but they still aren't a county. If I want to visit all the states, I don't need to visit Washington, D.C. or Puerto Rico even though they would be "holes" in the map.

 

Also, I think county is a legal entity so it is used loosely if it includes Louisiana divisions.

Link to comment

Were you to ask one of us with an Amateur Radio License, we would respond that there are 3077 counties in the US. More information and maps can be found here.

That's wrong info. The word "county" is used loosely. In VA, there are many cities that aren't part of any counties and they have to be counted. If you just go by your list, there will be plenty of holes all over USA that you never been to.

 

I don't understand. If I am trying to visit, find a cache, or identify all the counties why would I be concerned about an area this is NOT a county? Indeed, they may be "holes" in the map, but they still aren't a county. If I want to visit all the states, I don't need to visit Washington, D.C. or Puerto Rico even though they would be "holes" in the map.

 

Also, I think county is a legal entity so it is used loosely if it includes Louisiana divisions.

 

Just dont take the word "county" so literally. Think of the word in a loose term.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_%28United_States%29

 

In the United States, a county is a political and geographic subdivision of a state, usually assigned some governmental authority.[1] The term "county" is used in 48 of the 50 U.S. states.[1] The exceptions are Louisiana and Alaska, which have functionally equivalent subdivisions called, respectively, parishes and organized boroughs. There are also several consolidated city–counties throughout the U.S., in which a city has merged with its county to form one unified jurisdiction with the governmental powers of both entities.

 

I learned alot about the word "county" in the last few years and the teachers never taught me about those things when I was in school.

Edited by SwineFlew
Link to comment

Were you to ask one of us with an Amateur Radio License, we would respond that there are 3077 counties in the US. More information and maps can be found here.

That's wrong info. The word "county" is used loosely. In VA, there are many cities that aren't part of any counties and they have to be counted. If you just go by your list, there will be plenty of holes all over USA that you never been to.

 

Actually, it is quite accurate and concise based on what was requested by the OP.

Link to comment

Were you to ask one of us with an Amateur Radio License, we would respond that there are 3077 counties in the US. More information and maps can be found here.

That's wrong info. The word "county" is used loosely. In VA, there are many cities that aren't part of any counties and they have to be counted. If you just go by your list, there will be plenty of holes all over USA that you never been to.

 

Actually, it is quite accurate and concise based on what was requested by the OP.

Wrong. Most people arent aware of County-equivalent list. They are counted as well. If you want to just stick with just the word counties, Louisiana and Alaska wont be on your list. However, if you add Louisiana and Alaska, you have to add all the other cites as well because they are all under county-equivalent list. You cant just take part of the county-equivalent list to add to the counties list and skip the rest. :blink:

 

Here is the full list. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties_and_county-equivalents

 

And its 3143 counties and county-equivalents of the United States of America.

 

The Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget consider the 64 parishes, 18 organized boroughs, 11 census areas, 42 independent cities, and the District of Columbia to be county-equivalents.

 

And, as far I know, only one county doesnt have a cache, but there is a good chance to put a earthcache in that county.

Edited by SwineFlew
Link to comment

Were you to ask one of us with an Amateur Radio License, we would respond that there are 3077 counties in the US. More information and maps can be found here.

That's wrong info. The word "county" is used loosely. In VA, there are many cities that aren't part of any counties and they have to be counted. If you just go by your list, there will be plenty of holes all over USA that you never been to.

 

Actually, it is quite accurate and concise based on what was requested by the OP.

Wrong. Most people arent aware of County-equivalent list. They are counted as well. If you want to just stick with just the word counties, Louisiana and Alaska wont be on your list. However, if you add Louisiana and Alaska, you have to add all the other cites as well because they are all under county-equivalent list. You cant just take part of the county-equivalent list to add to the counties list and skip the rest. :blink:

 

Here is the full list. http://en.wikipedia....nty-equivalents

 

And its 3143 counties and county-equivalents of the United States of America.

 

The Census Bureau and the Office of Management and Budget consider the 64 parishes, 18 organized boroughs, 11 census areas, 42 independent cities, and the District of Columbia to be county-equivalents.

 

And, as far I know, only one county doesnt have a cache, but there is a good chance to put a earthcache in that county.

 

It terms of what the OP is asking for, it really doesn't matter if they're called counties, parishes, organized boroughs, census areas, etc.

 

The data needed to produce county maps is openly available GIS data, available as Shapefiles and use a unique identifier called a FIPS code to identify each region, a label (i.e. Santa Clara County, Livingston Parish), and bounding coordinates to determine the outline of each region. The first two digits of FIPS code indicates the State (New York is 36) and three digits for the country/parish. The FIPS code for the county I live in is 36109. The FIPS code for Livingston Parish, Lousiana is 22063. Quite a few years ago I worked on a project that used an open source GIS library to create thematic maps with country boundaries and creating one for New York wasn't any different than creating one for Alaska or Louisiana. The country or parish name was just a label that could be displayed on the map.

 

 

Link to comment

As for number of counties found. I have been actively targeting counties for years. I am now up to 1648 as of today. It is getting harder now that I have to travel further.

FeatheredFriends

 

You are just ahead of Hunster for the NC lead in this category. He's at 1629 according to his profile.

It looks like IMM has webscouter. beat. Jim has 'one in each county' as a stated goal on his profile page, but is only at 1990 according to project gc.com.

Link to comment

I am also an active county hunter, though I have gaps in my logs going back about 2-3 years. Once everything is logged up and proper I stand in the 1174 neighborhood (1173 now that Bedford City, VA was folded into Bedford county). My goal is actually 2 in each with a 3rd for good luck. I know Alaska is going to be the ruin of me, I've got a lot of the easy ones down, but some of the more remote ones are going to be brutal to get to. Kalaweo in Hawaii might revert back to Maui once its last resident passes on. I'm kind of hoping the county status will disappear when that happens or it opens up to tourism/development at that time.

 

http://mob-rule.com/user-gifs/bernsa.gif is a great map I refer to as it's fairly high resolution. I am based near Washington, DC.

 

Counties will remain a key caching goal for me, and I don't really cache much on the local scene relatively speaking. My style is to hop an airplane somewhere and clean out a region. Getting tougher and tougher as I squeeze myself out of the Mid-Atlantic to do much else out of my home base. Many of my map holes are intended to be reached from certain airports (Hudson Valley - ALB, SYR, BDL) - Central Ohio (CLE, CVG), North Carolina (CLT, RDU, GSO). I've also been striving to connect my blobs together.. the Texas-Colorado blob was intentional to link up what had been a hard hit area near Austin to the "Great Western Blob" as I call it. I've been stretching my Mid-Atlantic blob south and west with good intention of creating a link to at least Birmingham, AL. Where the bridge between East and West will happen, I'm stil uncertain. Kansas City - Chicago - Fort Wayne looks like an easy gap - as does the Sioux Falls to Des Moines option. But New Orleans to Austin is quite possible too with a short linkage through Birmingham. I only recently linked in the Kansas Doughnut to the western blob and connected what were random isolated mess in the Dakotas to a new Dakota box where I had a friend with me who's patience was dearly tested in my OCD to get as many counties as possible. I hope to eliminate that baby blue as much as possible.

 

I tried to celebrate my 1,000th county (or as much as one can say it was the 1,000th find) in Mills County, TX but the event I had was a bust. I plan to do my 2,000th county in Mills County, Iowa. At my current rate, I cover about 200 counties a year - so I've got a lot of time left (~20 years) who knows if Caching will be around that long? FWIW I still work full time, though some good friends do wonder about that sometimes.

 

Since I don't expect any more new ones this year, I figured for next year I want to focus on Minnesota/Wisconsin for a bit - Minnesota is my "lite" state with only 3 finds and Wisconsin is still untouched by any metric I have. (Not even an airport visit or the like). There's no particular reason why I haven't gotten to the "middle" of the country other than the $/airline mileage earning ratio is quite poor for this region. I have visited the 4 major Hawaiian counties P.C. (Pre-caching).

 

Also there are many counties where the caching is quite barren... Portions of Appalachian Kentucky are rough area in topography, and cache availability as well as diversity. Likewise there are suprisingly sparse areas in Northern Missouri and perhaps not so surprisingly in the Dakotas. It's not just the fact that a cache is listed... it has to really also be findable and loggable (not a forgotten mush of paper that has 4 DNFs on it - which was the biggest problem in some areas, such as Appalachian Kentucky I've seen. I have to say my favorite places have consistently been the open plains and western mountains. Texas, Colorado, Western Nebraska, The Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Alaska have been great so far. My experience has led me to think it's more difficult to cache in Florida and Appalachia.

 

I can tell you I have a greater appreciation for our country having taken on such a challenge. It's great to see all the places, some popular and some hidden gems all over. I understand how a lot of our lands are all connected.. and the transitional areas between them. How does the landscape vary from Cincinnati to Charlotte... or Austin up to Denver and over to the Pacific Ocean. How difficult was it for the likes of the Corps of Discovery, the Mormon Trail, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe trail goers. I've geocached a lot - but I can't imagine trekking on foot across these landscapes in the days before automobiles and trains and airplanes.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...