Project-GC Q&A - Recent questions in Miscellaneous

Which provinces make up the regions of Myanmar, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Palau?

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:51:18 +0000

Hi,

I'm building a small personal database of my geocaching data. I want region and county assignments that match Project-GC exactly, so that my numbers agree with your challenge checkers.

For almost every country I could reproduce your regions and counties from OpenStreetMap. For five countries, though, your regions don't seem to correspond to any administrative boundaries I can find in OSM (current or 2021) or in Natural Earth, and geocaching.com doesn't provide a state for caches there either:

Myanmar: Central, East, Lower, North, South, West
Burundi: Eastern, Northern, Southern, Western
Dominican Republic: Cibao, Este, Sur
Puerto Rico: Central, East, Metro, North, South, West
Palau: Babeldaob, North, Southwest, Southwest Islands

Could you tell me how these regions are defined? Ideally either which provinces/municipalities (or OSM relations) belong to each region, or the source you use for these polygons.

As a cross-check, I'd also like to confirm two countries where I assumed the official grouping:

Thailand: the six regions follow the official six-region scheme (e.g. Chon Buri in Eastern, Phetchaburi in Western).
Malaysia: Malaysia Timur = Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan; Semenanjung Malaysia = all other states.

Thanks a lot for Project-GC and for any pointers!

Best regards,

Steven

Karma - what does it really mean

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:14:49 +0000

I was perusing my stats as you do and spotted the karma figure again and pondered over the figure and what it really means and does it reflect an imbalance.
I was told some time ago that to be a good cacher you have to have a high karma value. That simply means you have to have many more cachers log finds on your caches than you have finds of your own
Well - my karma figure is only 0.47 and I am not too bothered by that - I have just under 100 caches out there all in a rural area (so not a tremendous footfall compared to places like capital cities) - all have FPs and the FP count I have on mine gives the FP index figure of 23.9% of premium logs meaning nearly 1 in 4 PM cachers give an FP on one or other of my caches - I am quite chuffed with that - as a CO that is my karma figure.
So going back to the imbalance I mentioned - I took a look at two other cachers specifically because of what they have out there, to show what I mean
1) CO 'A' who has over 3000 caches owned - has a karma figure of 6.69 - over 14 times my figure - well no wonder, with that many caches he is potentially going to get 30 times the number of find logs than I have - though his FP index is only 4.3%
2) CO 'B' who has just over 100 caches but a few of these (around 6) are in a big city - these 6 between them account for half the find logs he has got - unsurprising in the big city they will attract the far greater footfall particularly from foreign visitors. His Karma is 8.11 and because of where they are they attract FPs and his index is 25.3%

So not belittleing the effort put into any of this - for the cacher who places fewer caches in a rural area the footfall will be much lower and as an active finder this will mean the karma will always be low - pushing out so many caches will always push the number of finders up and the CO could be just as active if not more in finding caches but the balance with the karma is so different. Seems to suggest to push your karma up you should either pump out a load of caches (which to be honest will also mean poor quality) to get the 'find of your caches' rate up more - or you just don't go out finding any caches which will slowly push the karma up as cachers find your caches.
Equally the cacher who puts out caches in a rural location will get so much less footfall than even a single cache in a big city and despite the appreciation through FPs for those rural caches - the karma balance is still weighed towards the COs caches in big cities simply because of the footfall.

So what is that figure really for, and what do folk strive for if at the end of the day it doesn't really matter that you have a very low score yet your contribution is really appreciated. I guess what I am saying is that karma figure is not really required as it can muddy the waters when other folk look at them (and they do) and then compare them

Where can I find the counties map under the state map.

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 23:58:31 +0000

Its been awhile since i last looked. Trying to fill in the counties map for Florida. I use to be able to find it but the data format looks different. I found under statistics tag and found the map tag but it doesn't give me the map break down by county. Help please.

Hidden Date Calendar

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 11:37:51 +0000

A while back someone shared a checker with me that gave a calendar for every single year, starting in 2000. Each calendar showed the hidden dates of caches I had found. It is not associated with any challenge, it was simply for information purposes.

If there is a way to show a hidden dates found calendar for a specific year, I'll take that as well. I know of the Map Hidden Date tool, but I want to see the calendar.

I always seem to miss the ‘Back to top’ button here.

Tue, 01 Sep 2026 11:33:19 +0000

I actually always find myself missing the ‘Back to top’ button here.

It’s not a big deal in itself, but once you’ve scrolled right to the bottom, a button like that would be really handy, if not essential.

Greetings from Cologne

ThLiers

Adoption - Owner

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 08:22:08 +0000

Hi,

is it possible to identify which caches have been adopted by another user over-time?

Thanks,

Wolv

Pourquoi un écart de PF entre mon compte et project-gc.com ?

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 08:05:43 +0000

6900 PF reçus sur géocaching

6000 seulement sur project-gc.com

What's with SARCRZY?

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 08:46:00 +0000

I have a charter member checker, and someone reported that it did not pick up SARCRZY's hides. So I did some digging.

SARCRZY's profile id is 69108 but when I run PGC.ProfileName2Id it returns null, so the checker does not pick up their hides. In other areas on PGC's site SARCRZY is reported as an anonymous user.

Has PGC lost SARCRZY's profile id is is there something unusual about SARCRZY?

81 grid no longer complete?

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:05:44 +0000

Hello, I am wondering if there is a way to tell which cache was changed in the D/T rating to cause the new hole in my grid or perhaps my cache log was removed and I would like to determine if that is the case. thank you

Tabs have moved around

Wed, 13 May 2026 16:36:14 +0000

I have just noted that my 'Hides' Tab has moved along to 8th tab from the left when it was 4th on my profile stats page
Was there a reason for moving this - is there a way to put it back where it was before

Thanks

Why is it that caches in Northern Ireland don't count as UK?

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 18:28:01 +0000

Hi,

I found some caches in Ireland and also some in Northern Ireland (Derry, to be precise). I was expecting to get credit for finding caches in the UK, but no country souvenir and no map entry. How come?
I'm aware that this is not a Project GC problem, it's the same in the Geocaching map, but I thought you might know.

what happened to the "degrees from home" statistic?

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:27:15 +0000

I'm missing the degrees from home graphs (by number, by distance) in the Profile Stats. Is there any way to see this information?

County boundary processing rules per country – seeking documentation

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:28:25 +0000

i Project-GC team,

I'm building a desktop app for geocaching challenge-checking that needs to assign caches to counties / regions in the same way Project-GC does. Thanks to Pleu's earlier answer (https://project-gc.com/?qa=30819) we already know that PGC uses **osm-boundaries.com, database `osm20210412`, admin_level 6** as the base, and that **UK has "many special rules and unions"** on top.

I downloaded the same source data and compared the raw feature count with what Project-GC shows in its statistics. Most countries differ – sometimes by a few features, sometimes drastically:

| Country | osm-boundaries (level 6 unless noted) | PGC shows | Δ |
|---------|----:|----:|----:|
| AT | 93 | ~94 | -1 |
| BE (level 8) | 581 | 565 | +16 |
| CH (level 8) | 2234 | ~2113 | +121 |
| CZ (level 7) | ? | 77 | ? |
| DE | 405 | 401 | +4 *(found: 1× church boundary + 3× historical Landkreise)* |
| FR | 131 | 96 | +35 *(overseas territories?)* |
| GB | 226 | 102 | +124 *(special rules per Pleu)* |
| HU (level 7) | 174 | 175 | -1 |
| IT | 102 | 107 | -5 |
| LU (level 8) | 102 | 102 | 0 ✅ |
| NL (level 8) | 354 | 342 | +12 |
| PL | 387 | 380 | +7 |
| SK (level 7) | ? | 79 | ? |

To match Project-GC exactly, I'd need to know per country:

1. **Which admin_level is used?** (We assume level 6 for most, but BE/CH/LU/NL=8, HU=7, etc. – is this correct?)
2. **What additional filtering is applied?** Examples for DE we found:
- Excluded: `Evangelische Landeskirche in Baden`, `Landkreis Bühl (historisch)`, `Landkreis Kehl`, `Landkreis Lahr` (the latter three were dissolved in 1973)
Are there similar exclusion lists for other countries?
3. **For UK specifically:** What "unions" are performed? E.g., is `Bristol` formed by merging multiple OSM boundaries? Is there a list of these unions?
4. **For FR:** Are overseas departments (DOM-TOM) included or excluded? Anything else?
5. **Is there any data file or documentation** that lists the exact set of regions used per country?

I'm happy to share my work back to the community. Goal is a stable, project-gc-compatible county lookup for offline use.

Thanks for any pointers!

Ich brauche den GC-Code des ältesten Caches der Grösse Sonstige im Kanton Solothurn. Ist archiviert

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 15:13:54 +0000

Profile does not exist

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 17:30:40 +0000

I have just come across something I have not seen before - putting in a cachers ID in the profile name box - to be met with a large yellow triangle with a big black exclamation mark and underneath This profile does not exist
I am aware that when cachers dont wish for their stats to be viewed they can select that option and the page comes up with the statement about opting out etc - but the above seems to suggest the cacher name is not recognised despite it being copied and pasted from the GC profile - is this a glitch or another option that cachers can select ?

This profile does not exist

archived caches in an area

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:17:05 +0000

Is there a way of identifying all previous caches (those now archived) placed in a small area (I'm talking as small as a village) - I am aware you can find those archived ones that you have found, however I am asking about all caches that have been placed and the many (or few) that have been archived.

Regards

Tim

region anomaly

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:05:38 +0000

I was using a checker ( https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCBM4Q8/113058 ) for a new challenge cache (UK based) where I needed to find 5 icons in each of 5 of the 6 Eastern England Counties and the output showed that I had completed four of the counties and so needed one more from the remaining two. The output also told me how many were needed in those other counties (though it didn't tell me what I had got so I would know what I needed, So I had to research that myself !!)
So this is where the confusion arose - For Essex it says I had 4 types already found - when I checked using GSAK I could only identify 3 types (Trad, Multi and Unknown) I then researched with the map compare tools in PGC (specifically for Essex) and discovered that the checker must have also included a virtual which is located in the English Channel along with a trad - both obtained on a boat trip.
( https://coord.info/GC7B7DM and https://coord.info/GC1DVNY)
Now though neither of those caches are assigned a county in GSAK it is evident that they are assigned to Eastern England in PGC else they would not have shown up when researching Eastern England finds in map compare but also making the virtual the 4th icon for Essex in the checker output - so what is confusing about that is... both are showning South East England as the region on geocaching site (as seen on the cache page for each one )
So how is it that PGC says they are in Eastern England when Geocaching site says they are in South East England ?

lists of extremes - not able to complete

Sat, 11 Apr 2026 14:14:27 +0000

I have noted that I am not able to complete the list of extremes for my county or my region due to owning a cache that fulfils one of the criteria.
Is there no fall back for a CO who is in this position to be able to complete by either allowing the relevant cache to be accepted or for the next cache in order to be accepted for that CO

Custom lists

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:51:02 +0000

Hi

I am trying to set up a custom list to place in the milestones tab
I have gone through the process of naming, selecting the tab (milestones) and selecting bookmark list for the type - selecting which bookmark I want as the source (having put my ID in that section too)
I then clicked on submit and then save

Nothing - all that appears is a heading banner (with what I named ) but no cache list - shows '0'
I am aware of others do the same list and advising that their list populated straight away
I also waited a day once submitted and saved to see if waiting would help - but still no
I did consider the bookmark list status as a possible barrier so have tried this with the bookmark list set at private, shareable and public and it didn't work with any of these

I also tried by using the GC code list (copy paste comma seperated list into the box) but this came up with an error message every time -
Internal server error (6998be7ee19c07.70822645)

Though the last bit changed each time I tried that.

Though the bookmark list would be the better way to go as having to update the GC list would be more faff

I am not sure what I am doing wrong here - if anything

Please help

*Edit* - having tried several times to get this working, the day after I wrote this post I tried again and this time it worked - possibly a brief glitch, but now sorted

How often du you update the souvenir order?

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 06:59:05 +0000

Moin and hello!

In the folder "Souvenirs" of my stats sit since quite some time the new treasure souvenirs, I retroactively gained last year, they should be filed under "Other".

I know, you were doing some general updates with the whole site, so this was probably not very high on the priority list (and right so!). This is just a friendly question with as well no real priority.

How often does elevation data change?

Sat, 14 Feb 2026 06:27:33 +0000

I own a challenge cache that uses cache elevation info to determine qualifications, GC1ZAZG, High in Colorado Challenge Cache. I've noticed that elevations for many of the caches have changed in the past couple of weeks. Most of them didn't change much. One changed over 500 feet but appears to be much more accurate now. Do you know if this is an ongoing update of the elevation info or was that a one time thing? Can you share where you get the elevation data from?

Where can I find a list of the oldest geocache for each country - list used by PGC for checkers

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:56:20 +0000

When traveling, some countries have multiple caches hidden the same day (Bahamas has 4 caches hidden Jan 13, 2003) Where is the list PGC uses to determine you have the lodest in a country

Why are GC19GK9 and GC3TMG7 not counted as deepest caches in our statistics although listed at project-gc?

Sat, 07 Feb 2026 23:00:19 +0000

Why has NZL 3 regions and not anymore 2 as it was before?

Sun, 25 Jan 2026 10:08:33 +0000

When I visited NZ in 2018 I had a lot of founds in the southern and in the northern island. As I also visited all regions in NZ - like Otago, Nelson, Gisborne or Taranaki, I reached a coverage of 100% for the North Island, 100% for the South Island, and because NZ was divided into these 2 territories I also reached a coverage of 100% for NZ as the whole country.

Some months later - I cannot remember exactly when that happened - I found out that there was a change and a third territory, called Chatham Islands, had been introduced into the NZ territory. I had not been there and therefore my coverage for NZ changed to 66%, as one third was missing.

When I looked more precisely onto Chatham Islands I found out that there were only very little caches and not many geocachers ever visited this small island. So I think it is not correct to give this small island the status of one third of New Zealand.

My question now:

- Who was responsible for this change in territory division?

- Why did that happen? Is there anybody to give so much attention to such a little island?

- And last question: Why???

Any answers are welcome, best would be to get in contact with the person responsible for the territory division (especially in NZL).

Has there been any change to the regions of Andorra?

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 20:25:51 +0000

Hello,

i am the owner of this challenge: https://coord.info/GC6XE3D

In short: you have to find at least one cache in all regions of any country divided in regions.

Andorra was valid for this challenge and some cachers used Andorra to fullfil the challege.

But now, Andorra is ignored by the checker, when all 7 regions are completed.

On the other hand, Monaco is now shown as "SUCCESS", but it only consists of 9 "counties" (or city districts) and not really regions.

Is this a Project-GC problem or needs the checker some changes regarding this?

Challenge checker for GCBCDV4 disabled

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:59:33 +0000

https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCBCDV4/105388

Is it possible to enable this checker again?

Regards

Lord Wadar

challengecheckers werken plots niet meer

Tue, 11 Nov 2025 17:21:54 +0000

Krijg deze foutmelding:

Fout Kan script niet uitvoeren. De privacy-instellingen van de profielnaam verbieden dit.

Geen idee hoe dit op te lossen

Why do my Calendar Looper stats appear to be incorrect?

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 17:43:38 +0000

I've searched past logs and can't find a question/answer that helps. The "Top Find Calendar Loopers" shows me have 13.99 calendar loops - however I have at least 24 caches on each of my calendar days. What could be causing this? Thanks.

Is this challenge possible: "You need a caching-karma of at least 5.00"

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 17:40:46 +0000

Is there a quick and easy way how to find out, how many find logs a cache of mine had on a specific day?

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:03:28 +0000

I need to know how many find logs I received for Gcrehx on 19th August 2017. It must be close to 1000, so maybe there is a quicker way than counting. Thanks

Why is project gc putting porn ads on their pages.?

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:39:17 +0000

I did not appreciate seeing tits in my face when I was checking out the updated statistics. Not just a single ad but repeated over three times on the same page!

ProjectGC county polygons

Wed, 08 Oct 2025 09:28:47 +0000

I have a small web page, designed primarily for use in the UK, on a mobile phone, that performs co-ordinate conversion. It is quite widely used.

https://www.amberel.com/cache/coords.htm

One of the things I get asked for most frequently is support for ProjectGC counties. Currently it supports UK counties as they were in 1974, because this is the only polygon dataset I was able to obtain. These counties are the same as used by GSAK, but not the same as ProjectGC.

I am very willing to add ProjectGC county support if I am able to get the relevant polygon data. Is anyone able to assist with this please?

Rgds, Andy

My most finds in a day

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 07:52:42 +0000

I'd like to find a list of my days with the most finds. I mean more than the 3 that show up in my profile stats. Either top X days or days with more than X finds. Is there a way to do it?

Should Locationless caches count for a countries most found/favorited?

Sat, 04 Oct 2025 23:26:02 +0000

Looking over the section of the stats where it lists the countries/states/counties you've been in and if you've found the most found, favorited, highest/lowest etc... the "Where's 25" location less cache keeps popping up for the US. Below this section it states that location less caches are ignored in some instances. Shouldn't this be one of them?

Seven cache types in seven countries

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 15:19:59 +0000

Hello,

I would like to know how many geocahers in Germany have found seven different cache types in seven different countries. Can anyone help me find out or tell me how to filter to see the result?

Geocordially,

Killakul

Challenge GC5K5VD absent from the Challenge Tab

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 08:02:31 +0000

Hello,

I saw that this challenge : https://coord.info/GC5K5VD is absent from the Challenge Tab in my stats, as if it was not considered a challenge, even though it clearly is one. I checked, and it also does not appear on the Challenge Map of Paris. Can it be added to the challenge list or is there a special reason for it not being there?

Thank you for your help,

Kurkokoko

caches that used to be 'Not Chosen' size

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:26:58 +0000

Is there a way of identifying caches that were originally 'not chosen' in size but have been amended to 'other' - I am aware the change is a system generated one when the cache page has any amendments since they removed the 'not chosen' size
I ask as I had qualified for a challenge some time ago where you had to find all 7 sizes - I find myself going near that challenge cache location so plan to seek it out - however on re-doing the checker to my surprise I discovered it now says 'no' and lists the nearest to getting that criteria which is 6 sizes and is not the same list as before.
I can't search for the original list as I cant identify the cache that was the 'not chosen'

So is there a way of doing this ?

For info - I did do a big manual trawl of my finds yesterday trying to identify days where I have found 3 specific sizes to try and identify the specific day where I could have found all 7 and that did give me a few possibilities - initially I didn't get what I wanted - then realised I had chosen the wrong way of searching - tried again with different sizes and did manage to identify the day I had found all 7 and also the cahce which is now showing as 'other' but was originally 'not chosen'

Still interested to know if there is a way of identifying those that were but aren't any longer

Why no depth?

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 16:38:50 +0000

We recently found a cache called R e f l e c t i o n s https://coord.info/GC2PPNP

This cache apparently gives a good depth namely -6739 ft and indeed it does on other finders profile stats. however this one has not shown on our list at all.

We undid the actual location so it went back to its starting location in South Atlantic but nothing changed. Has something changed or are we doing something wrong?

Extremes by area: counties removed?

Sun, 20 Jul 2025 18:31:55 +0000

Some weeks ago gemany had 16 states and every state some counties. Now the counties are gone. Only for me? Will they show up again?

top finders location not accurate

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 14:05:05 +0000

Not sure if this should be under Bug reports or not - but asking here knowing it may be moved

I did a recent search for top finders of caches in one country (A) by cachers from another country (B)
I noted that the top two cachers on the resulting list were in fact from country (A) and not (B)
and this is evident from their GC profile as country (A) is given in their profile as home. Also, all their cache hides are in country (A) too.
So how is it that they appear in this search when they are not from country (B) as the filter requires ?
Is it something they have put in their PGC profile that would affect this ?

How can I find a cacher that I've found 7cache types from?

Tue, 15 Jul 2025 06:33:10 +0000

I've got a challenge where I need to find 7 cache types by one cacher (tradition, mystery, etc.) and I need to know if I can get that off of Project GC.

If I complete a 369 day streak and it is also my first 369 days of caching, will that be a unique accomplishment?

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 21:00:30 +0000

View other users profile

Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:18:21 +0000

Not very good at finding data…. How do I view a fellow users data?

Souvenir Categorization for SEMAG 2025 Block Party

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 12:24:42 +0000

Hi! I just want to reach out to put on the Souvenir categorizers radar that the SEMAG 2025 Block Party Souvenir hasn't been categorized to event specific yet.

Hallo in die Runde , wie muß ein FTF geschrieben werden um in der Statistik aufzutauchen.

Fri, 30 May 2025 08:27:10 +0000

I tried map compare but it didn’t work.

Sun, 25 May 2025 20:50:28 +0000

Souvenir Categorization 2025

Mon, 12 May 2025 14:09:03 +0000

Talking about categorization on project-gc profile page. Why is "Blue Switch Day 2025 Finder" in Uncategorized Souvenirs, while "Blue Switch Day 2024" is in Specific-day Souvenirs? The same goes for "GeoGuessr Challenge" (2024) being in Other Souvenirs, while this year's "GeoGuessr 2025" is in Uncategorized Souvenirs. Will they be categorized over time, or is this the final state?

Ad Labs being counted in the Busy Cacher in Badgegen

Sun, 11 May 2025 11:56:01 +0000

Am I right in thinking that Ad Lab finds are being counted in the Busy Cacher badge in bagdegen ? and if so why ?
I was under the impression that Ad Labs are not counted in a number of these stats and busy Cacher used to reflect going out and finding proper caches and the 400 in a day for the diamond was there to reward those who go out and do the big power trails.
However sitting in a car park and doing a bunch of multi choice questions to get 1600+ smilies is not the same - but it appears this has been what has happened with this badge

Edit - further thought to this :- if ALs can be included why not have a seperate badge for ALs - "Busy Ad Labber" that way the 'busy cacher 'badge can be left to proper caches and those who want to do mass ALs can get this other AL badge

Hvor mange favorit point fikGC13Y2Y ( lego Giraffen )

Sat, 10 May 2025 09:54:59 +0000

Hvor mange Favorit point fik GC 13Y2Y ( Lego Giraffen )

Show logged Lab Caches

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 09:55:53 +0000