Kosovo

[+HwyGuy]

Why does a cache located in Kosovo still show on the cache page as being in Serbia?

 

Many countries have now recognized Kosovo as a separate nation - is there a reason the Groundspeak has not?

 

Thinking of going to that area in the spring and just noticed the discrepancy.

 

Thanks for any info.

[+SwineFlew]

Groundspeak is known to do this. Its their game and they can make their own rules of what a "country" is.

[+Semper Questio]

Send them an email and ask them.

 

A long time ago in a similar thread about another country they explained their standard they used then to define nations within the system, but I don't remember what it was.

[Mr.Yuck]

Send them an email and ask them.

 

A long time ago in a similar thread about another country they explained their standard they used then to define nations within the system, but I don't remember what it was.

 

Yes, contact@geocaching.com And yes, I don't remember exactly either, but I do remember something along the lines of Northern Ireland and Ireland, and the UK. A very touchy situation in many cases. A self-proclaimed Country recognized by X number of other Countries? That there can be one seriously touchy situation.

[AZcachemeister]

Why does a cache located in Kosovo still show on the cache page as being in Serbia?

 

Many countries have now recognized Kosovo as a separate nation - is there a reason the Groundspeak has not?

 

Thinking of going to that area in the spring and just noticed the discrepancy.

 

Thanks for any info.

 

Does this affect the quality of the cache?

Does this affect your ability to find the cache?

 

Unless there are restrictions of GPS usage, why worry about political boundaries?

[+palmetto]

As others have said, try an email to contact@geocaching.com about this. It strikes me as quite likely that Kosovo as part of Serbia was the reality in 2001 when Geocaching.com first set up countries and some states, and they've simply never revisited this issue.

 

And they may have, but decided to leave it as is.

Recognition of Kosovo as an independent nation is about 50% worldwide and they aren't a U.N. nation.

[+Michaelcycle]

Send them an email and ask them.

 

A long time ago in a similar thread about another country they explained their standard they used then to define nations within the system, but I don't remember what it was.

 

Yes, contact@geocaching.com And yes, I don't remember exactly either, but I do remember something along the lines of Northern Ireland and Ireland, and the UK. A very touchy situation in many cases. A self-proclaimed Country recognized by X number of other Countries? That there can be one seriously touchy situation.

 

One of the recent threads about this sort of thing:

Northen Ireland/UK

there is also a thread in the features section about St Martin/St Maarten

 

Some of this can get quite emotional with name-calling, etc.

 

The fact that Sint Maarten is not on my "countries cached" list did not lessen the fun I had visiting or the caches I found there:)

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Why does a cache located in Kosovo still show on the cache page as being in Serbia?

 

Many countries have now recognized Kosovo as a separate nation - is there a reason the Groundspeak has not?

 

Thinking of going to that area in the spring and just noticed the discrepancy.

 

Thanks for any info.

 

I have no idea what Groundspeak uses as their canonical list of countries/territories but there are more than a couple different "official" lists.

 

The countries list from the CIA World factbook site is typically kept up to date and has Kosovo listed. However, I frequently use the FAO geopolitical ontology and it does not. Nor does the ISO-3166 country codes list (http://www.iso.org/iso/country_names_and_code_elements). It would probably make the most sense to use the ISO-3166 standard but GS has been managing their own list for so long it would likely cause all sort of complaints if they switched now.

[Moun10Bike]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

[Trinity's Crew]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

Even after the Beach Boys wrote that great song about it?

[+Ambrosia]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

 

Very interesting list, thank you. We were just having this sort of conversation the other day, and this thread helped answer some questions.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

 

Thanks for posting this. I always wondered what GS based their list upon. I'm more familiar with the FAO (a U.N. organization) geopolitical ontology as I do a fair amount of work with them (I'm currently working on a project by contract with them which will hopefully continue this year as it moves into stage two. The geopolitical ontology not only contains conuntry names but also defines numerous properties about each country such as the ISO codes, area size information, GDP data, currency, bordering countries, etc. One of those properties is "codeUN" which has the same value as the numerical code that was shown on the page you referenced.

 

I just recently wrote a country info lookup service that uses the geopolitical ontology as a data source to help disambiguate country designations affiliated with agricultural related organizations.

[+FunnyNose]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

 

Interesting list thanks for pointing it out.

 

However doesn't explain the Northern Ireland or the St Pierre et Miquelon Issue.

[Moun10Bike]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

 

Interesting list thanks for pointing it out.

 

However doesn't explain the Northern Ireland or the St Pierre et Miquelon Issue.

 

The issue with Northern Ireland is extremely complicated. This link explains that decision.

 

What is the St Pierre et Miquelon issue? The UN page calls it out as a separate entity, and Geocaching.com provides a separate listing for it in the countries.

[+FunnyNose]

What is the St Pierre et Miquelon issue? The UN page calls it out as a separate entity, and Geocaching.com provides a separate listing for it in the countries.

 

France still thinks it belongs to them.

 

From the CIA World Factbook

 

First settled by the French in the early 17th century, the islands represent the sole remaining vestige of France's once vast North American possessions.

[Moun10Bike]

What is the St Pierre et Miquelon issue? The UN page calls it out as a separate entity, and Geocaching.com provides a separate listing for it in the countries.

 

France still thinks it belongs to them.

 

From the CIA World Factbook

 

First settled by the French in the early 17th century, the islands represent the sole remaining vestige of France's once vast North American possessions.

 

That's between the UN and France then.

[+T.D.M.22]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

Even after the Beach Boys wrote that great song about it?

 

Argentina, Germany ooo I wanna take ya

France, Africa come on pretty mama

Key Largo, Monaco baby why don't we go

 

Siberia in norther Russia

There's a place called Kosovo

That's where you wanna go to get away from it all

From the never released Beachboys song.

 

OR where you thinking Kokomo

[+redsox_mark]

Yes Northern Ireland is a special case.

 

Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a "self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France". I'm no expert in this area, but my simple view is there are many places in the world which have their own identity and some degree of self-governance, but are also linked or in some ways governed by another country. The list which Groundspeak uses seems a reasonable one, and it seems reasonable to me to treat Saint Pierre and Miquelon as Saint Pierre and Miquelon rather than France. Another example I'd put in this broad category are the Cook Islands. They are "self-governing in free association with New Zealand".

 

Kosovo is in a different category as there is some question about which countries and organisations recognise it or not.

 

As long as Groundspeak takes a consistent approach using a defined list (which it seems they do) then this seems reasonable.

[Mr.Yuck]

 

Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a "self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France". I'm no expert in this area, but my simple view is there are many places in the world which have their own identity and some degree of self-governance, but are also linked or in some ways governed by another country. The list which Groundspeak uses seems a reasonable one, and it seems reasonable to me to treat Saint Pierre and Miquelon as Saint Pierre and Miquelon rather than France. Another example I'd put in this broad category are the Cook Islands. They are "self-governing in free association with New Zealand".

 

 

By the way, I see no indication where the 6,500 residents of Saint Pierre and Miquelon are not happy with their status and their French citizenships, or that there is any kind of independence movement. I agree with the paragraph I'm quoting. More examples? Denmark has two alone; The Faroe Islands and Greenland.

[+Andromeda321]

Was looking at my Europe map under cacher stats today and noticed something- Kosovo now appears on said map! Except it's a slightly different color than the other not-found countries around it (what drew my attention in the first place) and when you hover over it the mouse doesn't recognize anything unusual.

 

So, Groundspeak compromised by having it show up on the map, but it still doesn't have it's own country listing?

[+The A-Team]

So, Groundspeak compromised by having it show up on the map, but it still doesn't have it's own country listing?

Actually, after bringing up that map in a photo editing program, I found that the colour used for that region is the same as the one used for water. That is, Kosovo has been physically removed from Europe, and the resulting hole has filled with water. Kosovo actually isn't on the map at all. There's simply nothing but water in that region.

[Moun10Bike]

The maps in the statistics come from Google.

[+blazek]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

 

Well, at this homepage i.e. the state "Sark" is mentioned in Northern Europe - but if I have a look on this island, the caches are listed in Guernsey.

But i cannot hide a cache on this island, because Sark isn't mentioned in the online form I have to fill out to publish a new cache.

So - Kosovo is an independant country - but not listed at GC - Sark is an island mentioned on the homepage of UNSTATS - however not on GC.com, too.

Isn't there a misstake?

[+tifig]

[...]generally[...]

One exception are the statistics maps. I found two caches in Kosovo but the statistics map shows Kosovo as an "empty spot" because the cache listings say "Serbia".

[+narcissa]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

Even after the Beach Boys wrote that great song about it?

 

[+Chrysalides]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

Even after the Beach Boys wrote that great song about it?

Old thread, but it made me dig up this spoof. Pretty good one, actually.

 

[Mr.Yuck]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

Even after the Beach Boys wrote that great song about it?

Old thread, but it made me dig up this spoof. Pretty good one, actually.

 

 

It's not bad. But I wouldn't attribute it to the U.S. Marines, as the uploader says in their description. It appears to be Norwegian Peacekeepers. No offense to the entire Nation of Norway, or anything.

 

By the way, Kosovo is still not listed as a Country in the link provided by Moun10bike on January 14th, 2013.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

We generally try to stick to the Standard Country and Area Codes Classifications published by the United Nations Statistics Division. This list does not yet recognize Kosovo as a country.

Even after the Beach Boys wrote that great song about it?

Old thread, but it made me dig up this spoof. Pretty good one, actually.

 

 

It's not bad. But I wouldn't attribute it to the U.S. Marines, as the uploader says in their description. It appears to be Norwegian Peacekeepers. No offense to the entire Nation of Norway, or anything.

 

By the way, Kosovo is still not listed as a Country in the link provided by Moun10bike on January 14th, 2013.

 

It's also not listed as a country in the ISO-3166 country codes standard. That standard, which is generally very close to the UN country codes list (in fact the UN geopolitical ontology uses the ISO-3166 3 letter country codes and 3 digit numeric codes) is used for machine readable country code data.

[+ras_oscar]

So, Groundspeak compromised by having it show up on the map, but it still doesn't have it's own country listing?

Actually, after bringing up that map in a photo editing program, I found that the colour used for that region is the same as the one used for water. That is, Kosovo has been physically removed from Europe, and the resulting hole has filled with water. Kosovo actually isn't on the map at all. There's simply nothing but water in that region.

 

so we're renaming it Atlantis?

[+NYPaddleCacher]

[...]generally[...]

One exception are the statistics maps. I found two caches in Kosovo but the statistics map shows Kosovo as an "empty spot" because the cache listings say "Serbia".

 

I suspect that like the list of countries/territories used on the site, GS didn't create the maps either, but used some existing GIS base maps found elsewhere.

 

 

[+TriciaG]

[...]generally[...]

One exception are the statistics maps. I found two caches in Kosovo but the statistics map shows Kosovo as an "empty spot" because the cache listings say "Serbia".

 

I suspect that like the list of countries/territories used on the site, GS didn't create the maps either, but used some existing GIS base maps found elsewhere.

From post #22, two above the poster you quoted, Moun10bike said, "The maps in the statistics come from Google."

[+NYPaddleCacher]

[...]generally[...]

One exception are the statistics maps. I found two caches in Kosovo but the statistics map shows Kosovo as an "empty spot" because the cache listings say "Serbia".

 

I suspect that like the list of countries/territories used on the site, GS didn't create the maps either, but used some existing GIS base maps found elsewhere.

From post #22, two above the poster you quoted, Moun10bike said, "The maps in the statistics come from Google."

 

In that case, wouldn't it be cool if the Statistics/Maps page looked something like this?

 

http://www.nylesphere.com/clients/ultimateflashmapkiller/demo.html

 

It has a base map that can be zoomed/panned and each country can be highlighted with a different country, and display details with a mouseover on the country. It's based on the Google maps V3 API.

[+tasdevil13]

Even if this is an old thread, I just can second Blazek in post #23, that reviewing this list, Moun10bike was referring to, Sark is a separate country in Europe, but is not separate in GS sense. This is inconsistent.

 

It is kind of annoying, that there are some challenge caches out there, which require having found a cache in Kosovo. So the map on our statistics page shows a blank hole, the cache itself is listed as country SCG and I have no means to show easily, I've been there. To have a screenshot of the map is now not a real proof of my finds there.

 

Well, if Groundspeak is really treating them as equal, they could "fix" the issue with their map provider by just sending them over the bit for Kosovo too, if someone has found a cache in SCG...

 

Cheers

Roland aka tasdevil13

[+Alkhalikoi]

At least they've stuck with "Taiwan", instead of the horrible affectation of "Chinese Taipei"

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Even if this is an old thread, I just can second Blazek in post #23, that reviewing this list, Moun10bike was referring to, Sark is a separate country in Europe, but is not separate in GS sense. This is inconsistent.

 

It is kind of annoying, that there are some challenge caches out there, which require having found a cache in Kosovo. So the map on our statistics page shows a blank hole, the cache itself is listed as country SCG and I have no means to show easily, I've been there. To have a screenshot of the map is now not a real proof of my finds t

 

Well, if Groundspeak is really treating them as equal, they could "fix" the issue with their map provider by just sending them over the bit for Kosovo too, if someone has found a cache in SCG...

 

Cheers

Roland aka tasdevil13

c

 

Groundspeak just doesn't make up the list of countries/territories they use. It's based upon the UN country codes list, which typically coincides with the ISO-3166 country codes (an international standard).

 

Neither the UN Country codes list nor the ISO-3166 standard recognizes Kosovo as a distinct country. In fact, if you search the ISO site for Kosovo it returns Serbia.

 

Sark is an interesting case in that it's on the list of UN recognized countries but has not had a country code assigned in the ISO-3166 standard. Any claims that a place is "officially a country" should come from an official organization.