Here is a report by geocachingguy via his blog:

geocaching usa – which state is the geocaching capital?
Posted on November 3, 2011 by geocachingguy

Have you ever wondered how many caches are there in the states?
which state has the most/least caches?
which state has the most/least caches per population?
what about per its size?

And if we can answer all of these questions, maybe, we can find which state is the USA geocaching capital!

So to answer our first question : there are about 745,000 caches in the states (data is relevant for November 2011).

Most/Least caches

Here are the states with the most caches:

California – 98595 caches
Texas - 48759 caches
Florida - 32861 caches
And which state got the least caches?

Hawaii – 1387
North Dakota – 1506
Delaware – 1775
Population/Caches

Our next category is the caches per population. We know that California has the most caches, but it also has the highest population in the states (~37 millions people).

This category gives advantage to states that are not much populated, and indeed the leading states are: Idaho (with 118 people for every cache), Utah (with 119 people for every cache), and South Dakota (with 122 people for every cache).

The worst states in this category are again Hawaii (with 980 people for every cache), Maryland (with 973 people for every cache), and New York (with 881 people for every cache).

Caches/Area

Third question was referring to the ratio between state size and cache number. We can safely assume that small states may have less caches, but what about the cache density?

The leading states are Rhode island (with a cache for every 0.78 square mile!), New Jersey (with a cache for every 0.83 sq. mile), and Connecticut (with a cache for every 0.94 square mile).

The worst states in this category are Alaska (with a cache for every 147 square mile), North Dakota (46), and Montana (30).

So which state is the capital?

I took the liberty of giving ranks to each state, where the formula is basically as following:

state rank = (cache number rank) + (population/cache rank) + (caches/area rank).

So who is the winner (drums…..).

And the answer is: Oregon! It has 27086 caches (number 4), with a cache for every 141 people (number 5), and a cache for every 3.63 square mile (number 21).

A close second is California with the following numbers – 98595 caches (1), a cache for every 377 people (23), which is located in every 1.66 square mile (7).

Third is Utah, and the forth state is Washington.

So congratulations to Oregon!!!

If you have other ideas, you agree, or you disagree, feel free to leave your comments!


Hope you enjoyed this post,
GeocachingGuy.

Aye there me Matyes, we be disagreein with ye findins! The Golden State be buryin over twice the treasure of any other state, an over three and a half times that of Oregon! How can ye be the leader with less than a third o the booty???