Geocaching Statistics

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 6: More FPs

• At the end of 2017 there had been exactly 50000 favourite points allocated to South African caches. At the end of 2018 there were 55516 FPs, for a gain of 5516 (11%)
• During 2018 at least one find was logged on 13533 of the 14613 active caches (i.e., 92.6% of the active caches were found)
• 5516 FPs distributed among 124937 finds for the year implies that one out of every 22.6 finds was awarded with an FP
• The 5516 FPs were distributed among 2678 caches (18.3% of the active caches and 19.8% of the found caches)
• The following graph shows the distribution of FPs (1608 caches got 1 FP, 467 caches got 2, etc.)

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 7: Finds per African country

 

The first graph shows the top 3 (South Africa, Canary Islands and Madeira) on a linear scale.

The second graph shows the top 10 on a logarithmic scale. 

A few remarks:

• 6 of the top 10 are islands. I suspect this has to do with tourism
• South Africa is the only country among the top 10 which showed a substantially reduced number of finds. (Even Namibia managed to grow.)

Edited January 11, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 8: FPs per Province

Western Cape  1906 FPs  31.7%
Gauteng       1420 FPs  23.6%
Free State     968 FPs  16.1%
KZN            888 FPs  14.8%
Eastern Cape   412 FPs   6.9%
Mpumalanga     224 FPs   3.7%
North West      72 FPs   1.2%
Northern Cape   60 FPs   1.0%
Limpopo         58 FPs   1.0%

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 9: Finds

 

The top 10 cache finders in South Africa during 2018:

 1. pieterix     1608 finds
 2. Team GBS     1380 finds
 3. tjoklits     1357 finds
 4. iPajero      1355 finds
 5. LL_cool_J    1203 finds
 6. Strong_Boy   1149 finds
 7. The Huskies  1130 finds
 8. D_illigaf    1086 finds
 9. SKATTIE@1    1002 finds
10. Andredj       990 finds

 

The top 10 for Africa look much the same:

 1. pieterix     1608 finds
 2. Team GBS     1469 finds
 3. tjoklits     1357 finds
    iPajero      1357 finds
 5. LL_cool_J    1203 finds
 6. The Huskies  1184 finds
 7. Strong_Boy   1149 finds
 8. D_illigaf    1086 finds
 9. SKATTIE@1    1002 finds
10. Andredj       990 finds

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 10: Number of cachers

 

7880 cachers logged at least one South African cache during 2018. Of these, 1535 logged at least 12 (my arbitrary definition of an "active" cacher).

 

The graph of the  number of cachers in South Africa took an unexpected turn:

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 11: Number of cachers: South Africa vs. Africa

 

Whatever the problem in South Africa may be, the rest of Africa does not suffer from it.

33262 cachers logged at least 1 African cache (26026 outside of South Africa) during 2018.

[+Danie Viljoen]

Best calendar year ever

 

In 2013 iPajero logged 2415 African caches. That is 6.6 per day, or one every 3.6 hours!

[+PieterM]

Dankie Danie ?

[+Enigma_DKL]

3 hours ago, PieterM said:

Dankie Danie ?

Agreed

Thank you very much

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 12: South Africa vs. Africa

 

The next graph is another way to look at the information in part 11. It shows the number of cachers in South Africa divided by the number in Africa, for each year. It is clear that the focus (at least cacher number wise) has been shifting away from South Africa

[+ChrisDen]

Really enjoying these stats

[+Thrips]

I am also enjoying all the stats, thank you Danie.

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 13: RSA finds distribution

 

Of the 7880 cachers who logged at least 1 cache in South Africa during 2018, 2169 only logged a single cache. This is 27.5% of the total.

1534 logged 12 or more caches: 19.5% of the total.

The median number of finds is 3 per cacher

Because of a small number of very active cache finders, the average is highly skewed: 15.9 finds.

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 14: Cumulative finds distribution: South Africa vs. the rest of Africa

 

I found this one interesting.

How to interpret this graph: The horizontal axis is the percentage of cache finders (sorted from most to fewest finds), and the vertical axis is the cumulative percentage of finds. What this means, for example, is that the top 20% of South African finders (red line) have found 83% of all the South African finds for 2018, vs. the 75% of all the rest of Africa finds (blue line) by the top 20% of rest of African finders. The fact that the blue line is below the red line means that proportionally more caches are found by fewer cachers in South Africa than in the rest of Africa.

(TechnoNut would have liked this one - it is another example of the 80/20 principle.)

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 15: Ranking vs. no. of finds

• To be in the top 1% of cache finders, you needed at least 278 South African finds for the year (327 the previous year)

• To be in the top 100 cache finders, you needed at least 226 finds (254 the previous year)

• To be in the top 10%, you needed at least 24 finds (28 the previous year)

• To be in the top 1000, you needed at least 18 finds

• 11 Finds would have placed you in the top 20% of cache finders last year

• 51.5% of all cachers found 3 or fewer caches last year

Edited January 23, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 16: New cachers

 

There were 4744 cachers who logged their first South African cache during 2018. This number is an incredible 60% of the total number of cachers last year! 

This represents an increase of 6.4% from the previous year.

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

A real mystery

 

I am sure I am missing something obvious in the following one, but I can not think what it is. The first graph shows the distribution of the total career length of all African cachers. Career length is the period between first and last caches logged. What baffles me is why does it peak at yearly intervals? Why would so many cachers stop exactly after full years? The only reason I can think of is that premium members completely stop caching directly after their yearly subscriptions end, but why? (And in any case I suspect few cachers start out on premium.)

 

The second graph zooms in on the first 15 days. 53769 cachers (34.6% of the total) have only cached on a single day.

 

Jors has the longest African career, with 17.9 years (and still going strong).

 

The top 10:

 1. Jors           17.9 years
 2. Peter Scholtz  17.6 years
 3. Brick          17.0 years
 4. vklh           17.0 years
 5. jawn           17.0 years
 6. warthog        17.0 years
 7. gräfin         16.8 years
 8. Goofster       16.3 years
 9. pantomek®      16.3 years
10. GlobalRat      16.2 years

(There are only 16 days difference between nos. 3 and 6.)

 

Edited January 29, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2 hours ago, Danie Viljoen said:

What baffles me is why does it peak at yearly intervals? Why would so many cachers stop exactly after full years?

 

It gets even weirder. I calculated the distribution per day for 4 years, and it turns out that the period is not a year, but 368 days. And the effect is not small - the peaks are about twice as high as days 2 weeks earlier or later. (The graph below has a logarithmic scale; the peak to trough difference is about a factor 8.) So why would a typical cacher be so much more likely to stop after multiples of 368 days than random chance would predict?

Edited January 29, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+ChrisDen]

I have spent some time trying to find some logic for this unusual fact. I am sure that is is not a normal statistical phenomenon.

[+Danie Viljoen]

11 hours ago, ChrisDen said:

I have spent some time trying to find some logic for this unusual fact. I am sure that is is not a normal statistical phenomenon.

 

I have a theory that might explain part of this: If a number of cachers only cache at a specific time of the year (for example during a yearly holiday), then this sort of phenomenon will show up in the numbers. (Although I described it as career length yesterday, it is important to realize that the numbers include all currently active cachers as well. So not all of them have actually stopped.)

 

A fixed yearly caching spree is the only mechanism I can think of that will force a cacher's first and last finds to be at discrete intervals. I still can't explain why it is not 365 days. Maybe it is just noise in the data (although the peaks appear to be quite clear).

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 16a: New cachers per province

 

I have been requested to break down the numbers of new cachers further:

 

Edited February 1, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+ChrisDen]

On 1/30/2019 at 8:53 AM, Danie Viljoen said:

I have a theory that might explain part of this: If a number of cachers only cache at a specific time of the year (for example during a yearly holiday), then this sort of phenomenon will show up in the numbers. (Although I described it as career length yesterday, it is important to realize that the numbers include all currently active cachers as well. So not all of them have actually stopped.)

.

What about cachers that start and pay for Premium and stop when it expires. For this to effect the stats one has to assume the cacher takes out premium membership soon after they start and only carry on caching for a while after expiry.

Edited February 1, 2019 by ChrisDen

[+ChrisDen]

7 minutes ago, Danie Viljoen said:

2018 Statistics, part 16a: New cachers per province

 

I was requested to break down the numbers of new cachers further:

Thank you

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 17: Cache owners

 

During 2018 there were a total of 1526 South African cache owners who received at least one find log. The top 10 were:

 1. Adventure_T     2570
 2. Panthera03      2119
 3. AdieA           2062
 4. ChrisDen        2020
 5. BoazRuthFields  1905
 6. SpiderFinder    1830
 7. SKATTIE@1       1814
 8. Sokkies73       1754
 9. NeoNaartjies    1605
10. Andredj         1547

 

[+Sokkies73]

Sjoe! Nice to see my name in that last post...

Thanks so much !?

[+Delbadore]

Very interesting stats. Thanks very much! 

 

I was wondering if you can generate some stats on cache maintenance and age? I've noticed many caches which are placed and then unfortunately not well taken care of after publication. Which caches have the highest number of owner maintenance logs? Is there a correlation between cache age and owner maintenance logs? I expect there would be in certain areas but then again there are caches hidden in remote places that, if hidden in good containers, won't really need any TLC after publication - I've found quite a few like this.

 

Can you also tell us which are the loneliest caches (caches with the longest time since they were last found) in SA and per province?  I revisited a cache I found back in 2012 on Saturday and was very surprised to see that the last found it log was in 2015!   I also found a cache in 2013 and to date it hasn't been found again yet .

Edited February 5, 2019 by Delbadore

[+Danie Viljoen]

2 hours ago, Delbadore said:

I was wondering if you can generate some stats on cache maintenance and age?

Can you also tell us which are the loneliest caches

 

Thanks for the input - it helps with the difficult task to keep coming up with new stuff! I still have a few 2018 statistics which I would like to get to first (before 2020 ?) and then I'll get to your requests.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 18: Cache owners distribution

50% of all the South African finds in 2018 were on the top 67 cache owners (4.4% of the total owners)

80% were on the top 244 (16.0% of the total)

90% were on the top 440 (28.8% of the total)

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 19: Most new caches placed

1990 new caches were placed by 292 owners in South Africa during 2018. The 10 most active cache owners were:

 1. Panthera03   116 caches
 2. NeoNaartjies  84 caches
 3. WeItZfAmIlY   80 caches
 4. QwikChek      77 caches
 5. Adventure_T   67 caches
 6. ChrisDen      60 caches
 7. Spesbona      59 caches
 8. Panters       49 caches
 9. Wh00          44 caches
10. PieterM       36 caches

These 10 were responsible for 33.8% of all the new caches last year.

Half of all the new caches were placed by the top 22 (7.5% of the total number of owners).

80% of the new caches were placed by the top 77 (26.4%).

91.3% of the new caches were placed by the top half.

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 20: Number of Events

The one type of cache that keeps on growing in popularity is events. The first graph shows the number of events (of all types) in South Africa over the years:

The next graph shows the percentage of all new caches that were events:

Edited February 8, 2019 by Danie Viljoen
Added information

[+Spesbona]

I am not surprised by the event statistics.  In our area(Nelson Mandela Bay) it went from about 15% in 2017 to about 31% in 2018.  Although the total amount of new caches was about the same, the number of events, more than doubled.

 

It could be an interesting discussion why that would be the case.

 

Thank you for keeping us entertained with all the stats, Danie.

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 21: New vs. archived caches

All of the following is for South Africa:

The first graph shows the number of new caches (green) and the number of caches archived (brown) during each year:

 

(I excluded all event types, because they are supposed to be archived after a short period.)

 

The next graph shows what percentage of the new caches is cancelled out by caches getting archived. Once again I excluded events. When this upwards trending graph reaches 100%, it will mean that there will not be any net growth during that year.

 

The last graph is a different way to look at the previous one - it shows the net growth in cache numbers each year (excluding events). Peak growth was in 2013; we are currently sitting at about half the rate of 2013.

 

If the trend of the last 5 years persists, we may reach the point where the actual number of findable caches shrinks, as early as next year (2020).

Edited February 11, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

2 hours ago, Spesbona said:

Although the total amount of new caches was about the same, the number of events, more than doubled.

 

It could be an interesting discussion why that would be the case.

At this stage I have no theory why events have become so popular. I plan to look at the number of event attendees in a follow-up post; this should show if they really are more popular.

[+Danie Viljoen]

2018 Statistics, part 22: Number of Event attendees

The first graph shows the total number of event attendees for each year. (All types of events):

 

Next we have the average number of attendees per event for each year:

The number is definitely coming down; we are currently at half of the peak in 2012. Maybe we have too many events?

 

The last graph shows what percentage of all the finds for each year was logged on events:

It confirms the trend we saw in part 20 - not only are there more events now, but it gets a bigger fraction of the logs as well.

 

Unless there are specific requests relating to yearly statistics, this concludes this series.

[+ChrisDen]

Thanks Danie. Really great presentation of the stats

[+Danie Viljoen]

On 2/5/2019 at 7:57 AM, Delbadore said:

I was wondering if you can generate some stats on cache maintenance and age?

 

There are two type of maintenance logs: Needs maintenance and Owner maintenance. I'll show both:

 

Both of these are for all South African caches (archived as well as active caches).

 

I found this interesting - it appears as if caches slowly accumulate maintenance logs up to about 8 years. Those that last longer tend to have fewer maintenance logs. I assume it has to do with excellent location and quality construction from the start.

 

The South African caches with the most owner maintenance logs:

1. GC2EX44  Curse of the FTF # 3 - Gauteng       20
2. GC15KYQ  Sterkfontein View                    17
3. GC4H10K  GOS: Whale Crier                     16
   GC2GG2C  Nobel  Square                        16
5. GC3WXRQ  MEGA SA 2012 -Voortrekker "Uitspan"  15
   GC2YZ1B  BPS#2 All Aboard                     15
   GC1NJ8W  On the rocks                         15
   GC1N8C0  Willis Walk - Like A Penguin?        15
9. GC4Y92P  Plot 238                             14
   GC1X40C  Warthog Walk                         14
   GC10V29  Caledon's Steam Tractor              14

 

[+ChrisDen]

There could be another reason for the older caches not getting needs maintenance logs. A lot of the older cages belong to people who no longer cache. There is a tendency to try to keep those caches from being archived so I would assume that there is a lot of cacher maintenance that is done rather than post a needs maintenance log

[+Danie Viljoen]

Archiving as a result of maintenance logs?

I was curious to know what effect, if any, the number of maintenance logs has on the probability that a cache will be archived. Let's first look at the distribution of maintenance logs of all the archived caches:

An almost perfect logarithmic graph, which shows that the number of maintenance logs is not an important contributor. (Most of the archived caches have no maintenance logs.)

 

What about the rate of maintenance logs? 

This graph shows the distribution of the average rates for archived South African caches that lasted at least one month. I found this one very interesting and unexpected. What it tells us is that a cache is most likely to be archived if it receives Needs maintenance logs at a rate of one every 2.5 to 3.5 months (bars 4 - 6).

 

It surprised me to see that cache owners are actually more willing to handle higher rates. (Because I am working with the average rate here, this graph does not directly take the age of the caches into account. The third bar, for example, would contain caches with 1 maintenance log and age 2 months, as well as caches with 2 logs and age 4 months.)

Edited February 14, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+Danie Viljoen]

12 hours ago, ChrisDen said:

There could be another reason for the older caches not getting needs maintenance logs. A lot of the older cages belong to people who no longer cache. There is a tendency to try to keep those caches from being archived so I would assume that there is a lot of cacher maintenance that is done rather than post a needs maintenance log

 

This should at least trigger Owner maintenance logs. The green graph, however, does not confirm this theory.

Or did you mean maintenance by non-owners?

Edited February 14, 2019 by Danie Viljoen

[+ChrisDen]

Maintenance by non owners. In other words a cacher that gets to an old cache with a smashed container where the CO is no longer active is more likely to replace the container than they would a new cache with an active owner. The latter getting a needs maintenance log.

 

People seem reluctant to post a needs maintenance log. They rather make a note in the Found Log that there is an issue. That is my experience on my caches. 

[+ChrisDen]

Can't wait till after the current souvenir challenges to see the effect on the stats. Cachers have been very busy in our area (Eastern Cape)

[+Danie Viljoen]

Most South African finds for the year ending 31 March 2019:

 1. iPajero          1708 finds
 2. pieterix         1413 finds
 3. LL_cool_J        1149 finds
 4. Strong_Boy       1107 finds
 5. tjoklits	     1095 finds
 6. Andredj           960 finds
 7. D_illigaf	      909 finds
 8. The Huskies	      906 finds
 9. Team GBS	      819 finds
10. Geocaching Genie  796 finds

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

Most found South African caches:

The following caches were found most often during the past year:

1. GCMYYZ   Table Top Trove                            205 finds
2. GC7B84E  Cape Town / Table Mountain Virtual Reward  182 finds
3. GC7DAJM  2018 Jolly Jozi Jol                        177 finds
4. GC7B71M  Cape Light                                 168 finds
5. GC78HNP  Suspension Bridge                          166 finds
6. GC707WR  Nobel Square 2.5                           157 finds
7. GC6JCHV  V&A Waterfront: Bay Vista                  150 finds
8. GC31WXR  Table Mountain Travel Bug Hotel            149 finds
9. GC37VF3  Tip of Africa                              144 finds
   GC7B8X0  Into 7th Heaven                            144 finds

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

South African caches with the most Favourite Points:

 1. GC31WXR Table Mountain Travel Bug Hotel     The Huskies              586 FPs
 2. GC3WXRQ MEGA SA 2012 -Voortrekker "Uitspan" dolos                    179 FPs
 3. GC1ABZK Table Mountain - Cape Town          spuzva                   158 FPs
 4. GC2D9WC SS: Lusitania                       paddawan, BoazRuthFields 138 FPs
 5. GC2CG7X Hiddingh Security TB Hotel          Mr Panda                 124 FPs
 6. GCVDHN  Sailors' Star                       vespax                   118 FPs
 7. GCMYYZ  Table Top Trove                     Richter Family           112 FPs
 8. GC5BWV4 UP PERISCOPE                        family Behrens           109 FPs
 9. GC5Y00Q Tardis                              family Behrens           107 FPs
10. GC1H9WR 2 Oceans                            Littleclan               106 FPs
11. GC185   Sentinel View                       Prof Charles Merry        96 FPs
    GC2X329 Stellenbosch TB Hotel               Hesamati, BoazRuthFields  96 FPs
13. GC23KTY Good Hope                           MnCo                      94 FPs
14. GC51P0R Muzzle loading Gun                  family Behrens            91 FPs
15. GC77E   Cape Agulhas                        Peter Scholtz             90 FPs
16. GC6JCHV V&A Waterfront: Bay Vista           SawaSawa & krazikatz      89 FPs
17. GC548HP Intersect 2.0                       family Behrens            85 FPs
18. GC6ZB58 SAS Somerset                        krazikatz                 80 FPs
19. GC37VF3 Tip of Africa                       Zephyr2                   78 FPs
20. GC19QVQ Three Rondavels                     CrystalFairy              77 FPs

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

South African cache owners with the most Favourite Points:

 1. family Behrens  1615
 2. BoazRuthFields  1238
 3. The Huskies      931
 4. Geelvink         894
 5. iPajero          759
 6. N00n3atall       705
 7. Antron           679
 8. Andredj          669
 9. TEAM SCHUTTE     632
10. Evolutionaries   541
    TeamDJ*          541

 

[+M²C²D]

Thanks for the stats Danie. Shared them to our KZN FB page and had a question back from one of the cachers asking if the FPs are based on South African caches only or on all caches that the CO owns?

[+Danie Viljoen]

3 hours ago, M²C²D said:

if the FPs are based on South African caches only or on all caches that the CO owns?

Only South African caches. I could do it for African caches, but it is not practical to try to keep up to date with all the logs of the rest of the world.

[+M²C²D]

Thanks so much for the feedback, much appreciated!

8 hours ago, Danie Viljoen said:

Only South African caches. I could do it for African caches, but it is not practical to try to keep up to date with all the logs of the rest of the world.

 

[+Danie Viljoen]

Highest average no. of FPs per cache:

Which South African cache owners consistently get the most favourite points?

It would be unfair to compare owners who have only one (good) cache with somebody who has hundreds, so I only considered cache owners with at least 10 caches:

 1. TeamDJ*          32 caches   541 FPs  16.91 FPs/cache
 2. dolos            22 caches   349 FPs  15.86 FPs/cache
 3. family Behrens  108 caches  1615 FPs  14.95 FPs/cache
 4. XJuls            10 caches   140 FPs  14.00 FPs/cache
 5. Urban Campers    11 caches   144 FPs  13.09 FPs/cache
 6. Jake&Joshua      10 caches   127 FPs  12.70 FPs/cache
 7. mr panda         20 caches   243 FPs  12.15 FPs/cache
 8. The Huskies      87 caches   931 FPs  10.70 FPs/cache
 9. the pooks        13 caches   135 FPs  10.38 FPs/cache
10. Littleclan       12 caches   124 FPs  10.33 FPs/cache

All of these people are stars, but especially family Behrens and The Huskies, who managed to get a top average on such high numbers of caches owned!

[+Danie Viljoen]

Finds per African country:

The top caching countries in Africa for the past year:

 1. Spain (mainly Canary Islands)  168594 finds
 2. South Africa                   110563 finds
 3. Portugal (Madeira)              66054 finds
 4. Réunion                          8532 finds
 5. Morocco                          7129 finds
 6. Namibia                          6171 finds
 7. Egypt                            5835 finds
 8. Mauritius                        3576 finds
 9. Seychelles                       2901 finds
10. Cabo Verde                       2286 finds
11. Tunisia                          1649 finds
12. Tanzania                         1644 finds
13. Kenya                            1085 finds
14. Zimbabwe                         1014 finds
15. Botswana                          691 finds

It is interesting to note that 6 of the top 10 countries are (small) islands. This is probably because of European tourism.