General info needed

[Kayakmedic]

I'm writing an artical for a paper How many geocachers are there? how many caches are there?

 

Andy

[+SG-MIN]

There are 331839 active caches worldwide.

In the last 7 days, there have been 176750 new logs written by 28701 account holders.

 

-straight from the front page of geocaching.com

[+biosearch]

There are only 28,701 geocachers? If you think about the population of the world 6,556,802,973 that ain't that many, is it? Or is that 28,701 account holders just those that posted the recent/new logs. That comes out to just about 6 new logs per account holder...

 

Just curious...

[+SG-MIN]

It is the later, that is how many posted logs.

[+biosearch]

I've looked and can not find how many registered geocachers there are. That would be a good stat to have when looking for permission to place caches. (Yes I'm still stuck on that issue...)

[+sbell111]

I've looked and can not find how many registered geocachers there are. That would be a good stat to have when looking for permission to place caches. (Yes I'm still stuck on that issue...)

Be careful with that statistic. Some land managers may want tons of visitors and be impressed by a huge number of cachers. Others may not want many visitors and may give approval if you explain that caches tend to get many visits in the first few weeks and then fall off to only a few per week (or less).

[+Criminal]

Account Holders ≠ Quantity of Geocachers

 

I have my primary account, three sock puppets (including the infamous Socky McSock) as well as administer an account for my son who doesn’t log his finds.

[+biosearch]

I've looked and can not find how many registered geocachers there are. That would be a good stat to have when looking for permission to place caches. (Yes I'm still stuck on that issue...)

Be careful with that statistic. Some land managers may want tons of visitors and be impressed by a huge number of cachers. Others may not want many visitors and may give approval if you explain that caches tend to get many visits in the first few weeks and then fall off to only a few per week (or less).

Understand, and this goes back to the whinning topic that I posted the other day concerning getting permission, etc. I'm looking for the data to quote in the cases in which I believe that the individual would want more traffic to the site. For instance, there is a project underway here in my hometown in which they are building a large complex of multi-use paths, bicycle trails, etc. Many of these go through or around significant town features, etc. I am going to discuss geocaching with the project manager. I am going to wait until I get a feel for it, although I know a great deal about it already having contacts in city planning and area environmentalist who work with her. My guess at the present would be that she would be very interested in an increase in traffic. The idea would be to promote the use of this greenway and to draw visitors to the town. While a bit misleading, in this case I think that it would be useful... Thoughts?

[+Jennifer&Dean]

If you want to know how many people have accounts on Geocaching.com you could use the user ID number that takes you to their profile from the forums.

Kayakmedic is #146724 (they joined in June 2003)

Biosearch is #697987 (joined in May 2006)

 

But as Criminal said, account holders do not mean # of geocachers. The account I post under represents 2 people. But I have a sock puppet account as well.

And I know of people who have signed up and then decided it wasn't for them, so they never cached. Maybe it evens out, you never know.

There are around 17000+ geocachers who have found over 200 caches. Probably 5 times as many have found less. I usually say there are close to 100,000 active cachers in the world when asked.

Hope that helps!

-J

[+biosearch]

So, I read an article that is linked from geocaching.com The numbers cited was 550,000 geocachers worldwide... Anyone have any idea where that number came from, is it even close, would it be something that is valid to use, is there anyone that I can e-mail or a place on geocaching.com that I can find this information. I work with databases, the folks at Groundspeak should be able to quote a number within seconds from a simple query. Do they have that available. Again, I would like a number that could be used to help explain geocaching (and geocaching) to individuals when I'm looking for permission to place caches. Additionally, state statistics (number of caches, number of geocachers, number of logs within a set period of time) would be nice.....

 

Anyone from Groundspeak listening?

[+mgbmusic]

I'm writing an artical for a paper How many geocachers are there? how many caches are there?

 

Andy

 

Don't just write, grab a GPS and join the fun!! Seriously, there are people at Groundpeak who work with the media when contacted regarding the sport/hobby. Might not be a bad idea to shhot them an email. they'd probably have accurate statisics for things like LEO interventions (police investigating suspicious packages, etc.) I'd drop them a line.

 

And thanx in advance for the publicity.

 

--MGB

[+TrailGators]

Some geocachers have four legs! I love his hobbies and biography!

[+briansnat]

There are 127,891 active geocachers on this site. By active I mean people who have hidden or logged a find/dnf in the last 6 months.

[+biosearch]

There are 127,891 active geocachers on this site. By active I mean people who have hidden or logged a find/dnf in the last 6 months.

So that is approximately 0.04% of the population of the US, or 0.005% of the world population (give or take a bit). Or do I have those off a bit?

[+Confucius' Cat]

I'm writing an <sp>artical <sp> for a paper<insert full-stop here> How many geocachers are there? <Cap>how many caches are there?

 

Andy

Well, this is a little bit off-topic, but might I suggest that you use a good spell checker and then have your article reviewed by someone who is good at English grammar- most spell checkers do a poor job at grammar correction.

 

It amazes me how many published articles have so many grammatical and spelling errors these days- even though virtually every publication uses computerized composition.

 

EDIT: Spelling

Edited November 19, 2006 by Confucius' Cat