Hello Everyone - Now that the last 6 days of list updates are in the books, it might be a good time to review what just happened, and answer a few questions.
Q. What just Happened?
A. We added a net 58 items: 34 from dividing 3 countries into regions, and another 24 individually, for a new total of 949 MTP locations.
Q. Where did all of these weird new places come from?
A. All of these changes came directly from member suggestions (Thank you again for your input)
Q. Will the MTP list be changing again anytime soon?
A. We don't plan to make more changes to the MTP list until a year from now, but never say never. Also, political or other events can cause mini changes at any time. Our Restaurant and Hotel lists are constantly changing and refreshing, as Michelin and others vote annually on a staggered regional basis. UNESCO also votes annually to add WHS over the course of a few days each summer. So none of these lists is completely static.
Q. Why didn't we divide more large countries? And what about France and Switzerland, who already have too many regions?
A. I personally am a fan of dividing countries, and would have liked to divide more large countries now, but didn’t want to force too much change on people at once. Changing counts so drastically can disrupt things too much for many people, especially those who have been working very hard at the MTP list for a long time. So I decided to start with Kazakhstan and Algeria. That way at least the Top 10 countries by area have been divided. Also, England had stood out for a while as being different from its neighbors, which had all been divided long ago. In future, we can start working our way further down through DRC (#11), etc. with a focus on larger land areas first. If you wanted to plan ahead, you might look at those larger countries which are not yet divided.
Regarding France (which redistricted in 2015) and Switzerland (whose 26 cantons make its divisions relatively tiny compared to other countries), I looked long and hard at rationalizing them to fewer regoins. But then I realized it would take away counts from many people, and probably cause more harm than good. When I then realized how much work it would be to re-do not only maps, but the assignment of WHS, restaurants, hotels, etc., I dropped the idea for now.
Q. Why are Kazakh cities separate from the regions?
A. I found out when preparing to divide Kazakhstan, that those 4 cities were outlined separately from the regions in the official maps, and when I read Wikipedia, I found out why. "The cities of Almaty and Nur-Sultan have status "state importance" and do not belong to any region. The city of Baikonur has a special status because it is being leased until 2050 to Russia for the Baikonur cosmodrome.[4] In June 2018 the city of Shymkent became a "city of republican significance.” So these seem to me to be like Berlin and Hamburg in Germany, or Beijing, Shanghai or Chongqing in China, or Washington DC. Posting them as separate items was not random.
Q. Why so many tiny and wacky enclaves?
One of MTP’s quirks is its coverage of enclaves, of which we added 7 yesterday. While enclaves might not always be the most exciting places to visit, they are geographically distinct and unusual, and typically have come about due to some interesting historical twist. So I try to include them when I find out about them. Thank goodness that India and Bangladesh settled their land border issues in 2015, reconciling some 163 enclaves down to one remaining (Dahargram-Angarpota, which we included yesterday). I had been experiencing anxiety for years about dealing with those!
Q. I don't think the Aleutian Islands (or Yukon, or Chukotka...) is officially in the Arctic. Why did you put them there?
A. OK - whatever. Based on feedback, I renamed the region to "Arctic & Subarctic" to alleviate the ire of the Arctic purists in the group
Q. C'mon... Didn't you make these changes just to be #1 again?
A. No. First of all, these suggestions all came from the membership. Secondly, out of 58 net items added, I personally have only been to 22. If someone is looking primarily to boost their standing, adding locations where you haven't been would be a pretty dumb way to go about it.
Q. Why am I getting different counts on the app and the web?
A. Make sure that you are on the most recent version of the app, which is 1.2.3 (build 654). You can find out the current version by going to the profile tab, and clicking the gear icon in the top right.
Q. The app map is acting a little weird around the new regions. Why?
A. Same thing. Make sure you are on build 654 of the app.
Q. Some new regions aren't displaying on the location pages on the web. Why?
A. Not sure, but we're working on it...
Thanks for listening - and for your support. As always you can reach me with questions or issues HERE, or just email me at charles@mtp.travel
Happy Travels!