About EspeleoWorld

EspeleoWorld is a free, non-commercial catalogue of caves and shafts in Spain and France, with interactive maps, rankings and statistics in eight languages.

Who runs it

EspeleoWorld is made by Jordi, in Catalonia, Spain, and published by Lemur Ventures SL. It is an independent project, not affiliated with any caving federation or with the sources it credits. Legal details are in the legal notice and the privacy policy.

Where the data comes from

Each cave record comes from a published catalogue: Espeleoindex for Catalonia, open regional datasets in Spain (Navarra, La Rioja, Gipuzkoa and others), and BRGM BDCavité and Grottocenter for France. Every cave page names its sources and their licences; the full list is on the credits page.

How the sources are combined

Each cave has one owning source. When another catalogue describes the same cave, its fields can enrich the record and are credited separately. Records that turn out to be duplicates across sources are merged, and the old address redirects to the surviving page.

How often it is updated

Sources are imported when they publish new data; there is no fixed schedule. Each cave page shows the date its record was last updated: the date of the source's own change, or of the import that brought it.

Lengths, depths and systems

Lengths and depths are the sources' surveyed figures, in metres. When several caves form a system, its totals belong to the system, and each entrance labels them as the system's. Rankings count each system once and leave out canyons, whose drop is not a cave depth. Every ranking describes the EspeleoWorld catalogue, not every cave ever surveyed.

Descriptions and translations

Descriptions are normalised and translated into eight languages with the help of a language model, with automated checks that numbers, names and technical terms match the source. A translation that fails them is not published, and the page shows the text in its original language instead.