Data Visualisation on the Camino - some questions stand out

[uk_pilgrim]

I was looking through an interactive graphic of the Camino stats here:

https://public.tableau.com/views/CaminodeSantiago/StatisticsSantiagodeCompostela

Some fascinating things/ questions stand out for me:

1. After Spain and Portugal, which obviously have lots of people taking part due to their proximity, Ireland has the next highest number of people making the Camino as a proportion of population. More than 10x that of the UK! Could that be down to the Catholic link? Even so, it's 8 times as much as the French too!
2. In 2014 the number of people making the Camino by horse went up to about 1500, but only 300 in 2015, did some changes make it harder for people to go by horse?
3. More than 100x the number of people did the Camino in 2015 than 1986 (just 2,500 then). That is incredible! How will it be in 10 years?

 

[Pelegrin]

I think that the Camino launching point was 1993 (99000 pilgrims), when the Holy Year was widely promoted . So more or less the relevant increase has been 2,5x the number of people in 20 years.

 

[grayland]

Interesting observations and questions.

 

[uk_pilgrim]

Pelegrin: not sure if it's correct to compare the 1993 Holy Year with current non-Holy Years. Looking at the chart, the Holy Years always add about 100,000 onto the previous year, they don't seem to be having an increased effect over time. Also, the popularity had already grown from 2,500 to 9,700 by 1992, before the Holy Year you mention was widely promoted.

I would love to see data before 1986 to see what the previous Holy Year had been like!

 

[domigee]

Oh how I wish I had walked it when I first thought of it, about 40 years ago
To any young pilgrim reading this thread...don't delay

 

[peregrina2000]

The modern revival of walking to Santiago started gradually in the 1980s and then boomed from 2000 onwards.

When I first walked the Camino Frances, in 2000, we met a woman who had walked in the early 1980s. She was bedazzled by the changes she saw. She had walked from Roncesvalles to Santiago (the SJPP phenomenon was a much later addition) and had met a total of 12 other people.

 

[Pelegrin]

From Internet:

"En junio de 1962, Álvaro Cunqueiro realiza el Camino de las Estrellas en un Seat 600 desde O Cebreiro a Santiago. El correspondiente relato apareció publicado por entregas en un periódico gallego y hoy puede ser disfrutado en forma de libro. En un momento de la narración, el autor pregunta a un niño si vio pasar a algún peregrino, y el muchacho le responde repreguntándole qué es eso. Y en 1970, el sistema contabiliza 70 peregrinos. A mi entender, el renacimiento que experimenta el Camino de Santiago en los últimos treinta años se debe al impulso que le imprime don Manuel Fraga desde la presidencia de la Xunta de Galicia"

Summary: In June 1962 Alvaro Cunqueiro (a Galician writer) drove in a Seat 600 the Stars Way from O Cebreiro to Santiago and he wrote a book about that trip. On the narrative he asks a boy if had ever seen a pilgrim and the boy responds What is a pilgrim?.In 1970 were counted 70 pilgrims. The renaissance of the Camino was due to President of Xunta Manuel Fraga who took office in 1990.

Mine: Manuel Fraga was a minister in the Franco regime and because of that he never was well accepted by many people but he was really brilliant (IMO) and as a president of Xunta he did a lot of good things for Galicia.