Fedimeteo: A look at the numbers

I reviewed the latest data from the Fedimeteo network to pull out some statistics.

One important note before looking at these figures: these numbers only reflect direct followers on the Fediverse. They do not account for people following via RSS feeds or those who check the web pages directly. That "hidden" audience is massive but effectively impossible to calculate, so we are strictly looking at the ActivityPub follower counts here. Each country has its own FreeBSD jail.

The Heavyweights: Germany vs. USA
While usfedim (USA) holds the top spot for total numbers with 1,813 followers, defedim (Germany) is remarkably close behind with 1,597. The difference lies in the density: the German community is concentrated around just 138 cities, whereas the US network is spread across a massive 1,243 locations.

Engagement Density
If we look at the ratio of followers per city, the European instances show the highest concentration of users.
Germany** leads with roughly 11.6 followers for every city tracked.
The UK** follows with 8.7 followers per city.
Austria** sits at 7.7.

In these regions, each city feed serves a comparatively larger group of locals.

The "Quiet" Instances
On the other end of the spectrum, some instances are maintaining a lot of data for a very exclusive audience.
Malta (mtfedim)** is tracking 20 different cities but currently has only 2 followers. That is a ratio of 10 cities per follower.
Slovakia (skfedim)** tracks 30 cities for just 8 followers.

The American Scale
The sheer size of the US infrastructure is an outlier. usfedim accounts for 42.6% of all tracked cities in the entire Fedimeteo network (1,243 out of 2,918), but it holds only 23.9% of the total followers. It is by far the largest instance in terms of output, even if the user base is more spread out than in Europe.

Small but Efficient
A special mention goes to The Netherlands (`nlfedim`). With only 36 cities tracked, they have managed to gather 233 followers, making it one of the most efficient instances in terms of community interest relative to the number of locations tracked.

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