Procol Harum

Beyond
the Pale

BtP Statistics

Most Procoholic countries, 24 January 2009 – 24 January 2010

On 24 January 2009 we affixed a counter to the 'What's New' page at 'Beyond the Pale' to collect the nationalities of visitors to that page; it has been active now for exactly a year. The supposition was that people visiting 'What's New' were habitual fans actively looking for the latest Procol updates, which we have been publishing daily since October 1997. If the counter had been on the 'home' page it might have picked up merely 'casual trade', sent thither by search engines and so forth.

In the table below you will find the countries concerned, their populations, and the number of different computers used for visiting the 'What's New' page in a single year (there were 86,490 different machines ... but far more page-visits, of course: if you read BtP once a day from your home computer, that registers as '1' on our counter).

The countries are ranked according to the proportion of the population who seem to be Procoholics: this is why the Cook Islands (with one visitor) come in above the USA (with almost 22,000 visitors): and why Denmark, that most Harum-oriented of nations, comes in at No 1.

Population	Country	Ranking	BtP visitors
5,484,723	Denmark	1	9194
4,644,457	Norway	2	3247
91,533	Jersey	3	48
60,943,912	UK	4	23705
9,045,389	Sweden	5	2866
7,581,520	Switzerland	6	1911
5,244,749	Finland	7	1066
16,645,313	Netherlands	8	2431
3,311,640	Oman	9	357
4,156,119	Ireland	10	399
8,205,533	Austria	11	685
12,271	Cook Islands	12	1
82,369,552	Germany	13	6387
303,824,640	America	14	21,923
58,145,320	Italy	15	4112
33,212,696	Canada	16	1865
10,403,951	Belgium	17	439
21,007,310	Australia	18	743
29,973	San Marino	19	1
40,491,052	Spain	20	990
62,150,775	France	21	1374
304,367	Iceland	22	5
307,451	Bahamas	23	5
3,958,128	Puerto Rico	24	57
7,112,359	Israel	25	86
40,482,000	Argentina	26	488
4,173,460	New Zealand	27	46
1,307,605	Estonia	28	14
281,968	Barbados	29	3
26,414,816	Venezuela	30	281
107,665	Micronesia	31	1
38,500,696	Poland	32	305
792,604	Cyprus	33	5
175,877	Guam	34	1
3,477,778	Uruguay	35	18
10,676,910	Portugal	36	54
718,306	Bahrain	37	3
4,491,543	Croatia	38	18
127,288,416	Japan	39	496
29,180,900	Peru	40	108
1,842,323	Botswana	41	5
1,128,814	Swaziland	42	3
196,342,592	Brazil	43	416
486,006	Luxembourg	44	1
2,007,711	Slovenia	45	4
10,722,816	Greece	46	18
48,782,756	South Africa	47	60
4,195,914	Costa Rica	48	5
10,220,911	Czech Republic	49	11
16,454,143	Chile	50	17
3,565,205	Lithuania	51	3
140,702,096	Russian Federation	52	88
2,245,423	Latvia	53	1
6,831,306	Paraguay	54	3
4,608,167	Singapore	55	2
9,930,915	Hungary	56	4
5,455,407	Slovakia	57	2
2,968,586	Armenia	58	1
3,309,679	Panama	59	1
10,159,046	Serbia	60	3
71,892,808	Turkey	61	21
3,619,778	Albania	62	1
3,971,941	Lebanon	63	1
25,274,132	Malaysia	64	4
22,246,862	Romania	65	3
45,994,288	Ukraine	66	5
109,955,400	Mexico	67	11
20,179,602	Cote D'Ivoire	68	2
65,493,296	Thailand	69	5
13,927,650	Ecuador	70	1
28,146,656	Saudi Arabia	71	2
15,340,533	Kazakhstan	72	1
237,512,352	Indonesia	73	13
23,382,848	Ghana	74	1
33,769,668	Algeria	75	1
34,343,220	Morocco	76	1
1,330,044,544	China	77	27
86,116,560	Vietnam	78	1
96,061,680	Philippines	79	1
172,800,048	Pakistan	80	1
1,147,995,904	India	81	1

As noted on the original page we published after just one day of this survey, the table should perhaps take a language factor into account (clearly denizens of the UK, New Zealand, America, Canada and Australia are likely to feel more at home at BtP – which is published in English, of which they all speak a version – than the average visitor from Poland, Japan, Venezuela etc).

We should also perhaps adjust on economic / infrastructure grounds: for instance America has 223 million internet users, and the UK 40.2 million. So there's quite a lot of work to be done to make such a table 'meaningful'! We hope nonetheless that it is not without a certain interest: it's not intended to prove anything in particular but it may provide food for rumination.

It should be noted that the above figures relate to the 'whatsnew' page only. Overall BtP had 1,061,168 visitors last year, reading 4,481,718 pages (making 11,473,998 'hits' for those familiar with that term). The majority of traffic comes from people searching for Procol Harum information, and thus finding BtP. The information above represents those people who keep coming back to BtP. But there's no reason to believe that their nationalities differ much from the total traffic, though.

Lastly, here's the list showing countries ranked differently, according to the absolute number of computers visiting BtP in the year:

Country	Ranking	BtP visitors
UK	1	23,705
America	2	21,923
Denmark	3	9194
Germany	4	6387
Italy	5	4112
Norway	6	3247
Sweden	7	2866
Netherlands	8	2431
Switzerland	9	1911
Canada	10	1865
France	11	1374
Finland	12	1066
Spain	13	990
Australia	14	743
Austria	15	685
Japan	16	496
Argentina	17	488
Belgium	18	439
Brazil	19	416
Ireland	20	399
Oman	21	357
Poland	22	305
Venezuela	23	281
Peru	24	108
Russian Federation	25	88
Israel	26	86
South Africa	27	60
Puerto Rico	28	57
Portugal	29	54
Jersey	30	48
New Zealand	31	46
China	32	27
Turkey	33	21
Greece	34	18
Croatia	35	18
Uruguay	36	18
Chile	37	17
Estonia	38	14
Indonesia	39	13
Mexico	40	11
Czech Republic	41	11
Thailand	42	5
Ukraine	43	5
Costa Rica	44	5
Botswana	45	5
Cyprus	46	5
Bahamas	47	5
Iceland	48	5
Malaysia	49	4
Hungary	50	4
Slovenia	51	4
Romania	52	3
Serbia	53	3
Paraguay	54	3
Lithuania	55	3
Swaziland	56	3
Bahrain	57	3
Barbados	58	3
Saudi Arabia	59	2
Cote D'Ivoire	60	2
Slovakia	61	2
Singapore	62	2
Cook Islands	63	1
India	64	1
Pakistan	65	1
Philippines	66	1
Vietnam	67	1
Morocco	68	1
Algeria	69	1
Ghana	70	1
Kazakhstan	71	1
Ecuador	72	1
Lebanon	73	1
Albania	74	1
Panama	75	1
Armenia	76	1
Latvia	77	1
Luxembourg	78	1
Guam	79	1
Micronesia	70	1
San Marino	81	1

BtP nationality statistics a decade ago | A table like that above but relating to the first single day of the survey | The 2011 table