A friend of mine in Australia has questioned whether her visits to this blog were being counted, as she seemed to never see Australia listed in the blog statistics. But she had, for reasons beyond her control, fallen behind in responding to posts on social media. Suddenly, she rectified that situation, and just as suddenly I had 31 unread notifications on Diaspora. Is Australia counted, the answer is a resounding "yes," as can be seen from these graphics;
The list of countries produced by the Blogger (blogspot) software is a "top ten" list, and it can't show everything. At the bottom we see "otro" (other), with the number 3. Since there is already a country listed (Lithuania) that had only one page-view, we know that there were three other countries with a single page view that could not be listed. So twelve countries were sources of page-views, but only nine of them were named.
Most of the time, a country has to be the source of more than a single page-view to be named on the list. Thirty-one views put Oz on the map, and on the list.
There are some strange things about these country statistics, though. For example, you almost never see China, which has roughly a quarter of the world's population, on the list. That is because China has its own internet, and does not allow ordinary citizens to access "our" internet. I do occasionally see two or three visits from China, probably from individuals with special privileges or those able to circumvent the ban through technical means.
There are also some illogical points. Visits from Réunion (a Department of France) are shown separately, as "Réunion." But I've never seen a separate listing for Tahiti or French Polynesia. States and Territories of the US are not shown separately, so one never sees a listing for Puerto Rico. More consistency would be good, but I like seeing Réunion separately, since I have a friend there.
