Country Souvenirs?

[+sloth96]

New souvenirs for countries were coming out regularly at a few a month.  I can;t find any for March 2023 or April 2023. Have all of the countries come out?  

[+Viajero Perdido]

I think they gave up on trickling them out a few at a time, and released simple designs for all the remaining countries.  I know I personally have souvenirs now for Brunei, Nicaragua, and Macao, three countries with so few caches, I figured I wouldn't see those souvenirs (at the old pace) in my lifetime.

[+Goldenwattle]

3 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

Brunei, Nicaragua, and Macao

I've been to Brunei and Macao, but before I geocached. I am hoping I might be able to pick up Macao this trip.

I enjoyed Brunei. I was staying with locals and got to go up the tower of the big mosque, travel on a long boat, etc.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Goldenwattle

[+sloth96]

4 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

I think they gave up on trickling them out a few at a time, and released simple designs for all the remaining countries.  I know I personally have souvenirs now for Brunei, Nicaragua, and Macao, three countries with so few caches, I figured I wouldn't see those souvenirs (at the old pace) in my lifetime.

I am having trouble finding the souvenirs for Afghanistan, Taiwan, Sark, and Svalbard.  There may be more.

[+Viajero Perdido]

I checked my profile.  I do have the souvi for Taiwan, which links to here.  Don't know about the others.

[+sloth96]

You are right about Taiwan.  I missed it.  

 

For available countries souvenirs, I looked at https://project-gc.com/Tools/SouvenirList

and for countries, https://project-gc.com/Statistics/CachesPerArea?submit=Filter .  

 

They say there are 245 countries but only 220 souvenirs.

[+peter-tvm]

I suppose that the 25 country difference is mostly from those that have zero caches. Like Bouvet Island. 

[+RetiredGuy]

I used Project GC to rank the countries based on number of caches ever published in a country which gave me a list of all countries that are counted as countries by HQ. In that list, there are six countries that currently do not have a geocache: Somalia, Bouvet Island, Tuvalu, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and North Korea.

 

Ireland still does not have a souvenir though it does have regional souvenirs. This is inconsistent with how HQ has country and regional souvenirs for United States, Germany, Canada, and Australia. 

 

The countries that rank the highest in caches ever published that do not have souvenirs are: Serbia (61), Afghanistan (65), Guadeloupe (66), Martinique (79), Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands (113), French Guiana (119), Sark (181), and Mayotte (196). 

 

The countries that rank the lowest in caches ever published that have souvenirs are South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (239), British Indian Ocean Territory (236), Sierra Leone (235), and Liberia (234).

 

Below are the countries without souvenirs. I personally am waiting on souvenirs for the highlighted ones.

 

[+terratin]

Wow, I never realized Serbia and Svalbard had no souvenirs. Great work, thanks a lot!

[+FunnyNose]

Ireland still doesn't have a country souvenir, but we all know that story. Only country of my 79 cached that I don't have.

[Keystone]

"That story" for Ireland can be found in this Help Center article.

[+baer2006]

19 hours ago, Keystone said:

"That story" for Ireland can be found in this Help Center article.

I knew that story, but I don't understand why there couldn't be a souvenir for Ireland (the island Ireland, as used as area identifier by GS)?

[+CaracalShan]

And (as I replied to another topic) for Serbia it probably has to do with the fact that most of the world recognizes Kosovo as a separate country, but Serbia doesn't (and still sees Kosovo as a Serbian province). So they probably wait until that is settled, and can then make souvenirs for both Serbia and Kosovo. Western Sahara is probably the same story, since it isn't recognized by Morocco (although Morocco already has a souvenir). I personally am waiting for the Svalbard-souvenir as well :-)

[+sloth96]

14 hours ago, CaracalShan said:

And (as I replied to another topic) for Serbia it probably has to do with the fact that most of the world recognizes Kosovo as a separate country, but Serbia doesn't (and still sees Kosovo as a Serbian province). So they probably wait until that is settled, and can then make souvenirs for both Serbia and Kosovo. Western Sahara is probably the same story, since it isn't recognized by Morocco (although Morocco already has a souvenir). I personally am waiting for the Svalbard-souvenir as well :-)

Perhaps the counter point to that thinking is Taiwan which has a souvenir.

[+Geoboater]

I see what you're talking about.  Earlier this month I visited 4 new countries and noticed souvenirs for only 3 of them.  There is no souvenir for Serbia in my list, where I found 7 caches.

[+CaracalShan]

16 hours ago, sloth96 said:

Perhaps the counter point to that thinking is Taiwan which has a souvenir.

Yes, I was thinking about that as well after typing my reply.

[+RetiredGuy]

Personally I feel it would be best to attach a souvenir to any country that has active caches where the list of countries is the list already debated and then defined by HQ. 

 

This would keep the discussion away from any political arguments (e.g. Ireland, Serbia, Taiwan, Afghanistan) and focus this back to being just about the game.

 

Another commonality among some of the countries that have yet to make the souvenir cut by HQ are some of the French “countries”. These are technically French collectivities, overseas territories, departments, or regions. But at the same time there are quite a few French collectivities, overseas territories, departments, or regions that have made the cut.

 

 

 

Just looking for consistency…

[+sloth96]

It seems these are spread a bit unevenly "continentally" as well.  Below is the table with what I think the continents are. (Let me know if there is a mistake.)

 

It looks like they rank as follows for number of "missing" souvenirs.

10 Africa

5 Oceania

4 Europe

3 North America  (Maybe 2 depending on how to count Navassa, a US Minor Island in the Caribbean that is contested between the US and Haiti)

2 Asia

1 South America

 

Country	Continent
Ireland	Europe
Serbia	Europe
Afghanistan	Asia
Guadeloupe	North America
Martinique	North America
Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands	Europe
French Guiana	South America
Sark	Europe
Mayotte	Africa
Equatorial Guinea	Africa
Congo	Africa
US Minor Outlying Islands	Pacific/Caribbean (Some disputed US/Haiti)
Comoros	Africa
Western Sahara	Africa
Central African Republic	Africa
Burundi	Africa
Guinea-Bissau	Africa
Yemen	Asia
Pitcairn	Oceania
Nauru	Oceania
Eritrea	Africa
Guinea	Africa
Tokelau	Oceania
Wallis and Futuna Islands	Oceania

[+fizzymagic]

I remain astonished that the Canary Islands are still considered Spain.

[+sloth96]

2 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

I remain astonished that the Canary Islands are still considered Spain.

The relationahip between the Azores and Portugal is like that in my mind.

[+fizzymagic]

56 minutes ago, sloth96 said:

The relationahip between the Azores and Portugal is like that in my mind.

 

Yep.  Same thing.  I suppose it's the like US and Hawaii.

[+Goldenwattle]

35 minutes ago, fizzymagic said:

US and Hawaii

That's one country, as in Mainland Australia and the state of Tasmania. Shouldn't be two separate souvenirs for countries. They have state souvenirs.

[+fizzymagic]

5 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

That's one country, as in Mainland Australia and the state of Tasmania. Shouldn't be two separate souvenirs for countries. They have state souvenirs.

Yes, please keep up with the thread.  I was remarking on the Canary Islands being Spain, and sloth96 replied with an observation about the Azores and Portugal, and I responded with a comment that perhaps it was like the US and Hawaii.  We are all perfectly aware that Hawaii is a US state, and nobody was proposing that it needed a country souvenir.

 

Seriously, reading these forums can be quite frustrating.  A certain number of regulars feel the need to drop in on random conversations, and, without even bothering to read them, dispense kindergarten-level pearls of wisdom like the above.  Sigh.

[+baer2006]

6 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

I remain astonished that the Canary Islands are still considered Spain.

Because they are an integral part of Spain, which just happens to be a bit further away from the mainland?

 

It's even part of the EU's "Schengen" area, so for a traveler, it's indistinguishable from mainland Spain except that the flight takes a little longer (if you departed in Europe, that is). That's different from, say, the various French overseas departments.

 

That said, I agree that it's not really obvious (to me) which level of autonomy a region needs to gain "country" status in Groundspeak's list. Take e.g. the Channel Islands - I couldn't say, why caches placed on Alderney are listed as "Guernsey", while those on Sark are listed as "Sark".

[+sloth96]

6 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

 

Yep.  Same thing.  I suppose it's the like US and Hawaii.

From the wikipedia description, the Puerto Rico/US relation seems the better comparision.

 

However rather than debate a what should or should not be on the list, the list from RetiredGuy is about how Geocaching.com treats the countries they already identified.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, sloth96 said:

From the wikipedia description, the Puerto Rico/US relation seems the better comparision.

Except that Puerto Rico is much closer to the US mainland. Maybe Guam would be a better example?

[+Goldenwattle]

9 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

Yes, please keep up with the thread.  I was remarking on the Canary Islands being Spain

Canary Islands are are an autonomous community of Spain and make their own laws. Seems rather like the Isle of Man and some other places. The Isle of Man has it own souvenir. As have the Channel Islands. One could say the Isle of Man is part of the UK. Although having their own  money, they also used British money. Similar to the Channel Islands. Canary Islands uses the Euro.

[+sloth96]

Can we fork the what a country should be thoughts to another thread and keep the country souvenirs in this topic?  I am guilty of this as well but it would be nice to not muddle the issues.

[+RetiredGuy]

Agreed. There will always be a debate on whether a place should be considered a country or not. There are many different ways to classify what a country is and Geocaching HQ has determined the list of countries for geocaching. That list can be debated but that was not the original discussion of this thread.

 

The question being asked here is after Geocaching HQ has determined the list of countries for geocaching, why is there what appears to be great inconsistencies in determining whether a geocaching country deserves to have a country souvenir associated with it. 

 

It makes sense that HQ doesn't create souvenirs for countries that don't have active geocaches in them. Beyond that, how should a line be drawn if any. If it is drawn based on active caches or total caches in that country, there are some glaring omissions and that was what I was pointing out. These omitted countries would include at least Ireland, Serbia, Afghanistan, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Svalbard, French Guiana, Sark, and Mayotte.

 

I am hoping that HQ just took a break from issuing new souvenirs for countries and will start again soon. And if they draw a line between countries with souvenirs and those without, that line is not drawn arbitrarily. 

[+SolocacherNO]

Just curious, why do you think Svalbard should have it's own country souvenir? 

[+sloth96]

As Geocaching.com gives it's own country, it seems appropriate that all "countries" get a souvenir.  GC60N6F Hotspot (Traditional Cache) in Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands created by Kaldbekken (geocaching.com) is an example of a Svalbard cache.

 

The question posed is not really why are some areas considered countries and others are not.  The question is why do some geocaching.com recognized countries not have souvenirs.  

[+Difool]

On 7/19/2023 at 2:46 PM, baer2006 said:

That said, I agree that it's not really obvious (to me) which level of autonomy a region needs to gain "country" status in Groundspeak's list. Take e.g. the Channel Islands - I couldn't say, why caches placed on Alderney are listed as "Guernsey", while those on Sark are listed as "Sark".

They use UN "Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49)"

On 12/13/2019 at 3:35 AM, Moun10Bike said:

Because our country list is in general built off of this source, which lists Guernsey and Sark but not Alderney: https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/

The only two differences i can see is the aforementioned Northen Ireland as part of Ireland and the addition of Taiwan which is not on UNs M49.

That said there has been a recent change to UN M49, the Chanel Islands are no longer a separate region and Sark is no longer a country or area.

So I would expect GCHQ incorporate Sark back into Guernsey.