This is a follow up to my earlier posts Counting Countries and Fun With Flags.

In the previous posts I wrote about how I like to check the stats to find out where the visitors to my blog come from.

I am getting much better at recognizing flags.I also think about my last post whenever I watch The Big Bang Theory. I also sometimes get a few hits on the page when they show the episode where Sheldon has his webcast of Sheldon Cooper Presents Fun with Flags.

To the left are the countries that have visited my blog the most.

The top five countries on the list all have large English speaking populations, so I am not surprised that they are there. In fact, they are the same as they were back when I last made a post like this.

Yesterday, my blog counter passed the 40,000 mark. Of course it is just a number, but for someone who likes numbers it is fun to see milestones. The numbers are also not very accurate as many views of a blog are not captured as the content is seen in e-mails or with readers that do not register a hit with a blog.

At the 40K mark the US has more than 10 times the views than our neighbors to the north. Canada has a little more than 2,500 views, the UK almost 1,500 and both India and Australia have more than 500.

From there it goes downhill fast until we get to Greece with 102 views. Greece also is number 20 on the list so I have 20 countries with over 100 views. When I gave these numbers in Fun With Flags, Italy was in the number 20 spot with 26 visits. Italy is now up to number 12.

I also mentioned in the last post that I had 22 countries with more than 22 visits. Now I have 44 countries with more than 44 visits. I think it will be a long time before I make it to 66 with 66 or 88 with 88.

On the right are the flags of the countries that have only one visit to my blog. I compared this list with the list of countries from the last post. Most of them are new, but Guyana, Bahrain and Mozambique return to this list. They have not had any additional visitors to the blog. How am I supposed to learn what their flags look like if I don’t see them? Of course, if I am looking at them at the bottom of the list I am seeing them :-).

Now for the number of countries. When I wrote Counting Countries last September I had visitors from 76 countries. When I wrote Fun With Flags last November the total was up to 106. The map continues to fill in, and I have now had visitors from 142 countries. It is a rare occasion when I have a new country now and sometimes they even slip in without me noticing right away. I actually do not look as often anymore as the overall map doesn’t change much. Maps from last September and November are posted below as well as a map from today.

September

November

May 2013

WordPress has changed the color scheme on the maps so you can see the relative differences a bit better. The maps are starting to fill in a bit more. I was really excited when I had a visit from Bolivia that plugged the missing spot in South America. There is a tiny spot left in South America, but it is not visible in this view. Europe has filled in a bit more as has Africa. However, Africa still has big holes. Iran and the countries to the north of them are also missing. I don’t expect to see views from Iran, as I am probably blocked there along with almost everyone else.

I did get some views from Iceland since November, in fact they are in double digits. But, Greenland remains a vast area of white. Maybe it is because of all the glaciers there ;-).

I would also like to see a view from Madagascar. It looks like it is fading away into the ocean without any color in it on the map.

I have still not picked a favorite country flag, but these are two of my favorites:

Steven