How does continents display on profile stats?

Question

Hi!

I checked the maps-tab of my profile stats and was happy to see that Asia has been added as a separate map. I have found caches in three countries in Asia, so that would make sense, but why is North America and South America not displayed? I have 3 and 4 countries there.

Can these maps be added? Preferably one of them would include Central America as well.

Comments

The reason is that the continents maps only exist for Europe and Asia.
They can be added but it will take som work to do

Answer 1

As Target says, it's only because it's not implemented.

Asia has been there for over a year and is automatically enabled when the user has found X number of countries in Asia. X might be 3, I do not remember.

The first thing needed to create maps for South and North America is a list of countries that should be included. The problem is that it's not always as easy as taking a list from Wikipedia since there are so many different definitions of countries. Ideally it should be all countries that Geocaching.com uses that are in the geographical area.

After that we usually define a bounding box for the map with some trial and error, until it looks fairly good.

If someone would like to compile a list of countries, with the same spelling as Geocaching.com uses, one per line, it could make this process get kickstarted.

Comments

The following list is compiled from
http://www.geocaching.com/blog/2013/02/celebrating-two-million-geocaches-list-by-country/
The list is made by alarobric and update for the continent checker. It's not 100% because some of the smaller islands (countries) in the Caribian or the Pacific could still be missing if there are caches place after 2013 although some updates were made when we tagged the challenges.

"Europe"=
{"Germany", "United Kingdom", "Sweden", "France", "Czech Republic", "Austria", "Norway", "Denmark", "Spain", "Finland", "Netherlands", "Portugal", "Switzerland", "Belgium", "Italy", "Slovakia", "Ireland", "Poland", "Hungary", "Luxembourg", "Slovenia", "Latvia", "Lithuania", "Greece", "Romania", "Estonia", "Croatia", "Bulgaria", "Cyprus",
"Isle of Man", "Iceland", "Russia", "Ukraine", "Serbia", "Jersey", "Guernsey",
"Liechtenstein", "Malta", "Faroe Islands", "Aland Islands", "Andorra",
"Bosnia and Herzegovina", "Greenland", "Montenegro", "Macedonia", "Albania",
"Armenia", "Svalbard and Jan Mayen", "Monaco", "Belarus", "Gibraltar", "Moldova",
"San Marino", "Vatican City State"},

"North America"=
{"Canada", "United States", "Mexico", "Puerto Rico", "Bermuda", "Costa Rica", "Bahamas", "Panama", "Dominican Republic", "Cuba", "El Salvador", "Belize",
 "Cayman Islands", "US Virgin Islands", "Trinidad and Tobago", "Guatemala",
 "Curacao", "Aruba", "Barbados", "British Virgin Islands", "Honduras",
 "Saint Kitts and Nevis", "St Kitts", "Nicaragua", "Netherlands Antilles", "Jamaica",
"St. Martin", "Antigua and Barbuda", "Bonaire", "Turks and Caicos Islands",
"Martinique", "Guadeloupe", "Haiti", "St Vince Grenadines", "Grenada", "Saint Lucia", "Anguilla", "Montserrat", "Dominica", "St Barthelemy", "St Pierre Miquelon",
"St Eustatius"},

"South America"=
{"Brazil", "Chile", "Argentina", "Colombia", "Ecuador", "Peru", "Venezuela", "Bolivia", "Suriname", "Paraguay", "Uruguay", "Falkland Islands", "French Guiana", "Guyana", "South Georgia and Sandwich Islands"},

"Africa"=
{"South Africa", "Egypt", "Namibia", "Kenya", "Morocco", "Reunion", "Tunisia", "Zimbabwe", "Tanzania", "Swaziland", "Botswana", "Mauritius", "Seychelles",
"Cape Verde", "Mozambique", "Zambia", "Uganda", "Angola", "Gambia", "Ghana", "Djibouti", "Malawi", "Ethiopia", "Senegal", "Algeria", "Libya", "Madagascar",
"Mauritania", "Mali", "Nigeria", "Sudan", "British Indian Ocean Territories", "Mayotte", "Cameroon", "Congo", "Niger", "Saint Helena", "Sao Tome and Principe", "Gabon",
"Rwanda", "Sierra Leone", "South Sudan", "Benin", "Equatorial Guinea", "Togo",
"Burkina Faso", "Democratic Republic of the Congo", "Burundi", "Comoros", "Eritrea", "Chad", "Ivory Coast"},

"Asia"=
{"Japan", "South Korea", "Thailand", "Israel", "Hong Kong", "Taiwan", "Turkey",
"United Arab Emirates", "China", "Singapore", "Qatar", "Malaysia", "Afghanistan",
"Iraq", "Saudi Arabia", "India", "Oman", "Indonesia", "Kuwait", "Mongolia", "Philippines",
"Vietnam", "Sri Lanka", "Jordan", "Lebanon", "Nepal", "Iran", "Bahrain", "East Timor", "Cambodia", "Kyrgyzstan", "Georgia", "Kazakhstan", "Myanmar", "Maldives", "Azerbaijan", "Bhutan", "Pakistan", "Macau", "Laos", "Uzbekistan", "Syria", "Tajikistan", "Palestine", "Bangladesh", "Brunei", "Turkmenistan", "Christmas Island", "Yemen"},

"Oceania"=
{"Australia", "New Zealand", "Guam", "Fiji", "New Caledonia", "Niue", "N. Mariana Islands", "Palau", "French Polynesia", "Micronesia", "Marshall Islands", "Vanuatu",
"Cook Islands", "Papua New Guinea", "Norfolk Island", "Samoa", "American Samoa",
"Kiribati", "US Minor Outlying Islands", "Nauru", "Solomon Islands", "Tuvalu"},

"Antarctica"=
{"Antarctica"}

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Awesome! I was just going to say I would look into making a list, but now I don't have to.

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I added my comments to the list in a separate answer.

Answer 2

I've gone through the posted list, and compared it to a list of all countries with between 1 and 50 caches. The following differences were seen:

Africa:
Guinea-Bissau
Liberia
Guinea (not Eq., Guinea-Bissau or Papua New)
Somalia
Western Sahara
Central African Republic
Lesotho

Asia:
North Korea

North America:
Saba
Northern Mariana Islands (spelled with N. in list)

Oceania:
Wallis And Futuna Islands
Pitcairn Islands
Tonga

Unclear:
French Southern Territories

Answer 3

I can post the current definitions of Europe and Asia then.

    $europe = array(
        'Svalbard and Jan Mayen', 'Iceland', 'Norway', 'Sweden', 'Finland', 'Ireland', 'United Kingdom', 'Denmark', 'Netherlands', 'Belgium',
        'Luxembourg', 'France', 'Andorra', 'Spain', 'Portugal', 'Switzerland', 'Liechtenstein', 'Monaco', 'Italy', 'Vatican City State',
        'Malta', 'Germany', 'Austria', 'Switzerland', 'Czech Republic', 'Poland', 'Lithuania', 'Latvia', 'Estonia', 'Belarus', 'Ukraine',
        'Moldova', 'Romania', 'Bulgaria', 'Turkey', 'Greece', 'Hungary', 'Slovakia', 'Faroe Islands', 'Russia',
        'Slovenia', 'Croatia', 'Serbia', 'Montenegro', 'Albania', 'Greenland', 'Aland Islands',
        'Isle of Man', 'Gibraltar', 'Estonia', 'Jersey', 'San Marino', 'SCG', 'Guernsey', 'Bosnia and Herzegovina', 'Macedonia',
                    );

    // Asia definition, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_Asia
    $asia = array(
        'Afghanistan', 'Armenia', 'Azerbaijan', 'Bahrain', 'Bangladesh', 'Bhutan', 'Brunei', 'Cambodia', 'China', 'Cyprus',
        'Georgia', 'Hong Kong', 'India', 'Indonesia', 'Iran', 'Iraq', 'Israel', 'Japan', 'Jordan', 'Kazakhstan', 'North Korea', 'South Korea', 'Kuwait', 'Kyrgyzstan',
        'Laos', 'Lebanon', 'Malaysia', 'Maldives', 'Mongolia', 'Myanmar', 'Nepal', 'Oman', 'Pakistan', 'Palestine', 'Philippines',
        'Qatar', 'Russia', 'Saudi Arabia', 'Singapore', 'Sri Lanka', 'Syria', 'Tajikistan', 'Thailand', 'East Timor', 'Turkey', 'Turkmenistan',
        'United Arab Emirates', 'Uzbekistan', 'Vietnam', 'Yemen',
        'Palestine', 'Taiwan',
        'Egypt', 'Macau',
        );

PS! Countries that exists in two continents geographically can be a member of two contintents in this data as well. Turkey and Russia in the above data. Egypt could very well be a member of both South Africa and Asia.

Comments

maybe it will be possible to homogenize the style of all maps within this process. Because "every" map looks different. On the asia map areas outside of this continent are displayed in blue (=looks like water). In comparision of this the map of Europe looks much more better - countries which don't belong to Europe are displayed in grey. Furthermore sometimes waterbodies are blue, sometimes they are grey (e.g. Sweden !), sometime large waterbodies are not drawn ...

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I wasn't aware that non Asian countries wasn't displayed on the Asia map. They are supposed to be grey, like in the Europe map.

With the last statement I assume you are talking about water areas within the countries (lakes). This is not something we control in itself, the source data is like it is, some lakes are blue, some are not, in most cases probably depending on size.

I will take a fast look at the Asia map to see if I can correct that, hopefully it's simple.

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perfect the map of Asia is perfect now, thanks a lot

Answer 4

Additional countries both in Europ and Asia according to wikipedia

• Part of Transcaucasian Region, at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Physiographically, Armenia falls entirely inWestern Asia, while Georgia and Azerbaijan are mostly in Asia with small portions north of the Caucasus Mountains divide in Europe.

• The island of Cyprus is located on the Cyprian arc on the edge of the Asian Anatolian Plate and is physiographicallyassociated with Asia, but it is part of European organisations such as the EU.

• Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkey have territory in both Europe (dark green) and Asia (light green).

Answer 5

Found another issue

Spain is in Europe and Africa due to the fact that the Canaries is situated in Africa and the enclaves Ceuta and Melilla

Comments

similar issue with France and Reunion, but GS has listed Reunion as a seperate country in Africa

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It depends on the point of view:
Politically the canaries belong to spain and spain belongs to europe.
But geografically the canaries belong to africa.
So the question is: Which definition rules?

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There is no doubt about Ceuta and Melilla though, they are on African mainland.

Answer 6

Is there anything else I can help with to make this happen?

Answer 7

From the (October) news: 

We have also added more Continent maps in the Maps tab. Formerly we only had continent maps for Europe and Asia. Now we have added North America, South America, Africa and Oceania to the mix.

Thank you! I was just disappointed not to see Africa and North America in my profile, but thanks to another comment it seems that one or two countries are not enough.