Major islands of Japan should be selectable as "cities"

[+FamilyofFrogs]

I have found it annoying that Okinawa gets lumped into Japan for all new caches in Japan. If I'm looking for a potential FTF on Okinawa, why must I dig through caches that are several hundred or sometimes a thousand miles away on the larger islands of Japan? There are 236 active caches on the island of Okinawa and surrounding islands, we've found 56.

 

I am learning some of the names of cachers in Japan so I don't even look at some new caches, but what if they take a vacation and place one here? After selecting Japan in the "Country" drop down menu, couldn't the large islands of Japan be listed in "State/Province"? The five largest islands of Japan are: Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku and Okinawa.

 

Or, could a feature be added to limit the range of the listed newest caches? Okinawa is only 60 miles long from Southern-most tip to Northern-most tip. I have no need of info on cache GC1AYVT - "Cape Hado" that is 515.9mi from me, cache GC1B2A3 - "Dragon Quest" that is 904.8mi from me, or cache GC1AXHT - "Greatwall of Banri in Moerenuma # GCJ009" that is 1391.9mi from me; all have been posted in the last three days and none have been found nor has anyone logged a failed attempt to find it, what's interesting is that all three include cache information in Japanese! But as tempting as they are for a FTF, we're not likely to drop everything, buy plane tickets and go to mainland Japan just for a chance at a FTF.

 

(I just looked at Germany. It's got a list of 16 state/provinces listed and 54,258 caches. Of course the US has all 50 states plus DC listed with 331,648 caches! Australia has 8 listed with 13,619 caches. I find it hard to fathom that there are 27,114 caches on 94,526 sq mi of the United Kingdom and not a single province listed. That's 1 cache for every 3.5 square miles!) current as of 10 Apr 08.

[+simpjkee]

I'd say that you've got yourself a point.

[+The Leprechauns]

I think it's terrific that geocaching is becoming more popular in Japan. What you describe is a good problem to have.

 

That being said, there are presently 1339 geocaches in Japan. That's like the density in one suburb of San Diego. I am sure that a San Diego cacher would love it if California could be split into "Northern California" and "Southern California" to split that list up. The state will pass the 50,000 active geocache mark in the next few days. And, like you mentioned, the UK has been asking for some sort of subdivision for a long time.

 

You should make your suggestion in a manner designed for Groundspeak to see it. Either write them an e-mail, or ask a moderator to move your thread to the Geocaching.com Web Site forum.

[+Quiggle]

Moving to website forum.

[+CM-14]

In the meantime you should be able to setup your instant notifications to only show cahces within a certain distance to you. Mine only sends an email for new caches published within 50 miles of me.

Edited April 10, 2008 by CM-14

[+Markwell]

Or, could a feature be added to limit the range of the listed newest caches?

 

As a work-around for now, as a premium member, you can use the pocket query selection tool and set up "caches placed in the last week" and do a proximity search. Then save the query critieria and preview it whenever you want a quick list of the most recent caches closest to you.

 

Regarding the division into islands, I personally don't believe that Japan has reached a "critical mass" yet. Compare your situation with the Chicago area. The GONIL area surrounding Chicago has over 3,500 caches. We don't like our caches by county. If we did, the current list would be...

Cook: 1544

Kane: 513

DuPage: 432

Lake: 430

Will: 279

McHenry: 153

Kendall: 137

Kankakee: 24

 

But how does that help? I live on the border of 4 counties and can drive 20 minutes and be in a fifth. I can drive 5 minutes and be at a cache that's in Kendall County. I can drive 15 minutes and be in Kendall, DuPage, Kane - and I live in Will. But to drive to the farthest cache in Will County, my home county, would take about 70 minutes.

 

Islands are a little different in that they aren't as easily crossed as county lines, but I still believe that with the work-around of doing the proximity check FIRST and limiting it to caches placed within the last week, you'd be good.

[+tozainamboku]

Japan is divided into 47 regional jurisdictions calles prefectures or in Japanese todōfuken (都道府県):

 

1 Hokkaido

2 Aomori

3 Iwate

4 Akita

5 Miyagi

6 Yamagata

7 Fukushima

8 Ibaraki

9 Tochigi

10 Gumma

11 Chiba

12 Saitama

13 Tokyo

14 Kanagawa

15 Niigata

16 Toyama

17 Ishikawa

18 Nagano

19 Gifu

20 Fukui

21 Yamanashi

22 Shizuoka

23 Aichi

24 Shiga

25 Kyoto

26 Hyogo

27 Mie

28 Nara

29 Osaka

30 Wakayama

31 Tottori

32 Shimane

33 Okayama

34 Hiroshima

35 Yamaguchi

36 Kagawa

37 Tokushima

38 Ehime

39 Kochi

40 Fukuoka

41 Saga

42 Nagasaki

43 Oita

44 Kumamoto

45 Miyazaki

46 Kagoshima

47 Okinawa

 

I suppose that one could use the prefectures much the way states and provinces are used in other countries. There are also regional areas that roughly correspond to the major island and island groups, though Honshu is divided in five regions: Tōhoku, Kantō, Chūbu, Kansai, and Chūgoku; while Okinawa and neighboring islands are grouped together with Kyushu.

Edited April 10, 2008 by tozainamboku

[Mushtang]

...don't believe that Japan has reached a "critical mass" yet.

Dude. [looks down and shakes head]

[Ranger Fox]

...don't believe that Japan has reached a "critical mass" yet.

Dude. [looks down and shakes head]

 

Just to go from one end to the other of the mainland will take more than 13 hours--and that's if you go by their bullet trains.

 

Japan also seems to be 1.5x longer than California. I think that would be like driving from the northern tip of Maine all the way to the middle of South Carolina. I think you might cross ten states while doing so. Considering just this alone, I'd say some sort of way to divide the area would be a reasonable request. Implementation, however, may or may not outweigh it.

[+Markwell]

 

Straight line distance from Hama-tombestu to Makurazuki is about 1,157 miles. That same distance in the US would cover Seattle to Kansas City, MO. That's a considerable distance. But Japan in land area (145,840 square miles) is roughly the same as Montana (147,046). Montana also has MORE caches than Japan (currently Japan has 1340, Montana 2239). That puts Montana with 15.26 caches per 1,000 square miles and Japan at 9.19 caches per 1,000 square miles. So while the distance north-to-south is considerable, I don't think that Japan has the cache density necessary to subdivide into the groups at this time. Montana people seem to be doing OK with the state the way it is.

 

I still maintain that the division into regions is not the most practical way of searching for new caches. Going to http://www.geocaching.com/seek/ and looking up new caches that way has inherent problems, as discussed here. Instead, I suggest utilizing existing resources to get a better idea of exactly what you're looking for.

As a work-around for now, as a premium member, you can use the pocket query selection tool and set up "caches placed in the last week" and do a proximity search. Then save the query critieria and preview it whenever you want a quick list of the most recent caches closest to you.

Edited April 10, 2008 by Markwell

[Mushtang]

...don't believe that Japan has reached a "critical mass" yet.

Dude. [looks down and shakes head]

 

Just to go from one end to the other of the mainland will take more than 13 hours--and that's if you go by their bullet trains.

 

Japan also seems to be 1.5x longer than California. I think that would be like driving from the northern tip of Maine all the way to the middle of South Carolina. I think you might cross ten states while doing so. Considering just this alone, I'd say some sort of way to divide the area would be a reasonable request. Implementation, however, may or may not outweigh it.

I was only commenting on the choice of words he used, not the point that was being made.

[+Markwell]

I still maintain that the division into regions is not the most practical way of searching for new caches. Going to http://www.geocaching.com/seek/ and looking up new caches that way has inherent problems, as discussed here. Instead, I suggest utilizing existing resources to get a better idea of exactly what you're looking for.

As a work-around for now, as a premium member, you can use the pocket query selection tool and set up "caches placed in the last week" and do a proximity search. Then save the query critieria and preview it whenever you want a quick list of the most recent caches closest to you.

 

Also - set up instant notifications with your premium membership:

The Insta-Notify service is a way for you to monitor an area in the world for certain types of logs that are posted to the web site. For the most part this has been designed to notify you of newly published listings near you. However once we complete the initial testing we will open it up to other log types.

You'll have to set up "publish" notifications for each different type of cache, but that's not too hard.