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How many cavers are there in Europe ?

samedi 30 mai 2015, par Olivier Testa

Une draperie dans une grotte d’ardèche
Hommes des Cavernes - Olivier Testa

A while ago, I was wondering how many we were to be passionate about caving and speleology.
There were no direct answers so I contacted the resposible of national federations. This gave me these data.
Interesting !

Albania : 8 cavers, 1 club
Austria : 2500 cavers, 22 clubs [1]
Belgium : 1600 cavers, 150 clubs
Bulgaria : 728 cavers, 38 clubs
Croatia : 370 cavers, 18 clubs
Denmark : 5 cavers, 1 club
France : 7670 members (+2500 non members), 452 clubs, 25% women [2]
Finland : 30 cavers, 1 club
Germany : 2400 cavers, 88 clubs [3]
Great-Britain : 5580 cavers, 186 clubs [4]
Greece : 600 cavers, 17 clubs, 30% women
Hungary : 630 cavers, 30 clubs
Ireland : 180 cavers, 21 clubs
Italy : 3500 members (+2000 non members), 220 clubs, 30% women (new data 2015)
Lithuania : 80 cavers, 3 clubs
Luxembourg : 65 cavers, 1 club
Moldova : 29 cavers, 1 club
Monaco : 67 cavers, 3 clubs
The Netherlands : 191 cavers, 1 club
Norway : 180 cavers, 1 club
Poland : 950 cavers, 0 club
Portugal : 250 cavers, 21 club
Romania 1779 cavers, 38 clubs [5]
Serbia : 90 cavers, 5 clubs
Slovakia : 760 cavers, 51 clubs [6]
Slovenia : 452 cavers, 45 clubs
Spain : 7450 cavers, 335 clubs, 27% women (new data 2015)
Sweden : 560 cavers, 5 clubs
Switzerland : 963 cavers, 44 clubs
Turkey : 495 cavers, 15 clubs
Ukraine : 186 cavers, 35 clubs

Total Europe : 40.300

Number of cavers by country
Olivier Testa

Data retrieved in mars 2015 from FSE (http://eurospeleo.eu) unless otherwise mentionned

Please note the heterogenous nature of these numbers. In some countries, only the affiliated cavers are counted, in other countries, we have an approximation.
Then, in some countries, caving is closely linked with formal university research whereas in other country, it is mostly a hobby, and sometimes the clubs mixe caving with mountaineering, hiking, climbing…
Sometimes, there are 2 caving federations in the country and we got partial statistics.

Please do not hesitate to contact me to update the numbers, or correct them.

list of national federations : http://eurospeleo.eu/fr/membres/membres.html