How many geocaches are there?

[+toastfortea]

Um, I know this is a very basic question, but...

 

How many geocaches are there world-wide? An order of magnitude would be fine.

[+palmetto]

The GC Codes would indicate that about 2,700,000 listings have been created.

That's total cache pages ever written, not totals ever published. And certainly not current active caches.

 

I'd guess that half or less of those are currently active.

[+castagnari]

The main page of geocaching.com tells me that there are

 

1,625,239 active geocaches, and I believe this number is updated frequently.

[+toastfortea]

The main page of geocaching.com tells me that there are

 

1,625,239 active geocaches, and I believe this number is updated frequently.

 

Oh! I had a feeling I'd missed something obvious. No wonder I'm always the last to spot a cache.

[+iLenista]

And could you tell me how many geocachers are in the world?

[+mikemtn]

And could you tell me how many geocachers are in the world?

There are 2,072,864 active geocaches and over 5 million geocachers worldwide.

[+sjums]

mikemtn, I think iLenista is refering to the number of players

[+CanadianRockies]

In a recent interview, Moun10Bike said he ran some numbers and found that 3,112,754 had been published as of early May, 2013. Of course, many of these have been archived, retracted, etc. over the years.

Edited May 11, 2013 by CanadianRockies

[+The A-Team]

...over 5 million geocachers worldwide.

That number is completely bogus. Here are some points to keep in mind when viewing that number:

-That number indicates the number of geocaching.com accounts that have been created, not geocachers.

-Some accounts are for groups or organizations.

-Accounts created for the purpose of spamming caches or the forums aren't deleted, just locked. Here's an example.

-There are many accounts that were created, but never used.

 

The true number of accounts that have actually been used for geocaching will be far lower than the number stated, but it's to Groundspeak's benefit to have this number be as high as possible for marketing purposes, so they're not going to go deleting accounts even if they should be.