EuroBillTracker
Encyclopedia
EuroBillTracker is a website
designed for tracking euro banknotes
. It was inspired by the U.S.
currency tracking website Where's George?
.
s and location information for each note they obtain into EuroBillTracker. A user can then see any comments from other people who have had that note. From this information, the site extracts:
Euro banknotes and coins were put into circulation on 1 January 2002 and EBT has been tracking notes since then. The site was initially created by Philippe Girolami (giro). Anssi Johansson (avij) has been assisting with running the site since mid-2003. Site translation and various other tasks are handled by a group of active EBT users.
EuroBillTracker is not affiliated with the European Union
, European Central Bank
, national central banks or other financial institutions. Using EBT is completely free. Unlike Where's George?
, EuroBillTracker requires users to register an account before they can enter details of banknotes.
From February 2008 onwards, the website is supposed to be run by a non-profit organization based in Belgium
, and called the European Society for EuroBillTrackers. This organization, working pretty much like Wikimedia does, will be in charge of protecting the EuroBillTracker database and ensuring a free of charge usage of EuroBillTracker on-line tools for everyone. Proceedings for the founding of the association are under way as of January 2008; they were launched after disagreements between the founder of the website and other webmasters caused a split of EuroBillTracker into two different sites on 24 December 2007. The two sites reunited no later than 12 January 2008.
64 X2 4800+ dual-core processor and 4GB memory) which is located in Espoo
(Finland
).
EuroBillTracker uses the following software:
of trackers, especially in countries with a higher usage of the website, such as Finland
, the Benelux
countries and Slovenia
. On the contrary, the percentage of users with respect to the national population is especially low in some south European countries such as France
, Spain
or Greece
, and also in Ireland
.
Since 2004, the community has been organising a pan-European yearly meeting during summer:
After the 2008 meeting in Ljubljana
the EBT users decided to organize also a winter pan-European meeting.
Apart from the yearly meeting, national communities have been organising local gatherings at various levels; most notably, the German
-speaking community has once been hosted at the European Central Bank
headquarters in Frankfurt am Main in April 2007.
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
designed for tracking euro banknotes
Euro banknotes
Euro banknotes are the banknotes of the euro, the currency of the eurozone and have been in circulation since 2002. They are issued by the national central banks of the euro area or the European Central Bank...
. It was inspired by the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
currency tracking website Where's George?
Where's George?
Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency tracking websites , sites that track other objects—such as used books—and it has been used in at least one research paper to...
.
Characteristics
EuroBillTracker is an international non-profit volunteer team dedicated to tracking euro notes around the world. The site is made up of people who simply enter the information from the notes in their possession. Each user enters the serial numberSerial number
A serial number is a unique number assigned for identification which varies from its successor or predecessor by a fixed discrete integer value...
s and location information for each note they obtain into EuroBillTracker. A user can then see any comments from other people who have had that note. From this information, the site extracts:
- Diffusion information: Each euro country has its own range of note serial numbers and from this information EBT can generate diffusion graphs that tell us how the notes travel to other countries. See the Diffusion section for more information.
- Tracking information: When a note is re-entered, the users who previously entered it are notified via email. These hits can be seen in the statistics section.
- Statistics and rankings: Who enters the most notes, which are the top countries? Where are the notes currently situated?
Euro banknotes and coins were put into circulation on 1 January 2002 and EBT has been tracking notes since then. The site was initially created by Philippe Girolami (giro). Anssi Johansson (avij) has been assisting with running the site since mid-2003. Site translation and various other tasks are handled by a group of active EBT users.
EuroBillTracker is not affiliated with the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
, European Central Bank
European Central Bank
The European Central Bank is the institution of the European Union that administers the monetary policy of the 17 EU Eurozone member states. It is thus one of the world's most important central banks. The bank was established by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1998, and is headquartered in Frankfurt,...
, national central banks or other financial institutions. Using EBT is completely free. Unlike Where's George?
Where's George?
Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency tracking websites , sites that track other objects—such as used books—and it has been used in at least one research paper to...
, EuroBillTracker requires users to register an account before they can enter details of banknotes.
From February 2008 onwards, the website is supposed to be run by a non-profit organization based in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, and called the European Society for EuroBillTrackers. This organization, working pretty much like Wikimedia does, will be in charge of protecting the EuroBillTracker database and ensuring a free of charge usage of EuroBillTracker on-line tools for everyone. Proceedings for the founding of the association are under way as of January 2008; they were launched after disagreements between the founder of the website and other webmasters caused a split of EuroBillTracker into two different sites on 24 December 2007. The two sites reunited no later than 12 January 2008.
Statistical facts
Core figures
As of July 6, 2011:- Number of users: over 166,000
- Number of banknotes: over 92,100,000
- Total value of all notes: over € 1,790,000,000
- Number of interesting hits: over 530,000
- Number of bills by country:
-
GermanyGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
: over 25,900,000 -
FinlandFinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
: over 13,600,000 -
NetherlandsNetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
: over 12,400,000 -
BelgiumBelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
: over 11,000,000 -
AustriaAustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
: over 7,400,000 -
PortugalPortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
: over 4,800,000 -
ItalyItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
: over 4,400,000 -
FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
: over 3,800,000 -
SpainSpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
: over 3,000,000 -
SloveniaSloveniaSlovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
: over 2,650,000 -
GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
: over 590,000 -
MaltaMaltaMalta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
: over 560,000 -
SlovakiaSlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
: over 560,000 -
IrelandIrelandIreland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
: over 520,000 -
LuxembourgLuxembourgLuxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
: over 89,000 -
SwitzerlandSwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
: over 65,000 -
CyprusCyprusCyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
: over 32,500 -
PolandPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
: over 27,500 -
EstoniaEstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
: over 39,000 -
United KingdomUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
: over 22,000
Number of banknotes entered (history)
- 2002 – 535,822
- 2003 – 1,031,212
- 2004 – 3,377,007
- 2005 – 7,473,092
- 2006 – 10,949,457
- 2007 – 13,834,597
- 2008 – 15,077,744
- 2009 – 16,377,646
- 2010 – 15,633,549
- 2011 – 7,800,000 and counting
Software and hardware
EuroBillTracker is hosted on a dedicated server (AMD AthlonAthlon
Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of x86-compatible microprocessors designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices . The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and, in a first, retained the initial performance lead it had over Intel's competing processors...
64 X2 4800+ dual-core processor and 4GB memory) which is located in Espoo
Espoo
Espoo is the second largest city and municipality in Finland. The population of the city of Espoo is . It is part of the Helsinki Metropolitan Area along with the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, and Kauniainen. Espoo shares its eastern border with Helsinki and Vantaa, while enclosing Kauniainen....
(Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
).
EuroBillTracker uses the following software:
- PHPPHPPHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
- MySQLMySQLMySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
- phpbabel
Community
The growing popularity of EuroBillTracker has led to the development of a communityCommunity
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
of trackers, especially in countries with a higher usage of the website, such as Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
, the Benelux
Benelux
The Benelux is an economic union in Western Europe comprising three neighbouring countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. These countries are located in northwestern Europe between France and Germany...
countries and Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. On the contrary, the percentage of users with respect to the national population is especially low in some south European countries such as France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
or Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, and also in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Since 2004, the community has been organising a pan-European yearly meeting during summer:
- 2004: BrusselsBrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
- 2005: HelsinkiHelsinkiHelsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
- 2006: AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
- 2007: BerlinBerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
- 2008: LjubljanaLjubljanaLjubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
After the 2008 meeting in Ljubljana
Ljubljana
Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia and its largest city. It is the centre of the City Municipality of Ljubljana. It is located in the centre of the country in the Ljubljana Basin, and is a mid-sized city of some 270,000 inhabitants...
the EBT users decided to organize also a winter pan-European meeting.
- 2009: BolognaBolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
(March), ViennaViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
(August) - 2010: MaltaMaltaMalta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
(March), FlorenceFlorenceFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
(July) - 2011: KalkarKalkarKalkar is a municipality in the district of Kleve, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located near the Rhine, approx. 10 km south-east of Cleves. The most famous building of Kalkar is its church St...
(March), BarcelonaBarcelonaBarcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
(September)
Apart from the yearly meeting, national communities have been organising local gatherings at various levels; most notably, the German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speaking community has once been hosted at the European Central Bank
European Central Bank
The European Central Bank is the institution of the European Union that administers the monetary policy of the 17 EU Eurozone member states. It is thus one of the world's most important central banks. The bank was established by the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1998, and is headquartered in Frankfurt,...
headquarters in Frankfurt am Main in April 2007.
See also
- Currency bill trackingCurrency bill trackingCurrency bill tracking is the process of tracking the movements of banknotes, similar to how ornithologists track migrations of birds by ringing them. Currency bill tracking sites can track currency among the users of that website...
- Where's George?Where's George?Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency tracking websites , sites that track other objects—such as used books—and it has been used in at least one research paper to...
(tracks United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
paper money) - Where's Willy?Where's Willy?Where's Willy? is a website that tracks Canadian paper money — most commonly five dollar bills, but also higher denominations. "Where's Willy" is free, supported by users who pay a fee for extra features...
(tracks CanadianCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
paper money) - TrackGandhi tracks Indian RupeeIndian rupeeThe Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....