Every number on this site was checked before it was published. Most of them survived. Some did not.
The ones that did not are more interesting, so we keep them.
Here is the standard we work to. If a figure cannot be traced to a source that actually measures the thing in question, it does not go on the page. If sources disagree, we publish the range rather than picking the number we like best. If the famous version of a fact turns out to be wrong, we say so.
Eight pages on this site exist mainly because a widely repeated number did not hold up.
ATHENS — "Greeks consume 20 litres of olive oil per person a year."
You will find this everywhere, sometimes as 24 litres. The International Olive Council, which is the body that actually measures olive oil consumption, put Greek per capita consumption at 9.3 kilograms in its March 2025 statistics. A Greek specialist publication estimates just over seven litres for the 2025–26 crop year and says plainly that Greeks may no longer lead the world at all.
Greece is still first or near it. The circulating figure is roughly two to three times the measured one.
→ Athens
STOCKHOLM — "Sweden ran out of rubbish and has to import it."
A wonderful image, and not true. Anna-Carin Gripwall of Avfall Sverige, the Swedish waste management association, told The Independent in 2016 that the plants could run on biofuel instead — and confirmed to Snopes again in December 2025 that this remains the case.
Sweden does import waste. It imports it because other countries pay roughly $43 a tonne to send it, not because it has run short.
HONG KONG — "Hong Kong has 500 skyscrapers."
Depending on the cut-off date and the inclusion rules, the count of buildings over 150 metres runs from about 550 to 669. Guinness, using CTBUH figures from January 2025, gives 669. Wikipedia's list gives 569.
The city is comfortably first in the world either way. There is simply no single correct number, so we give the range.
LAS VEGAS — "Casinos removed clocks so gamblers lose track of time."
The most famous clock fact in popular culture, and it is disputed by the man who wrote the standard works on casino design. Bill Friedman ran two Las Vegas casinos from 1977 to 1990 and wrote Casino Management (1974) and Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition (2000). He calls the manipulation story a myth, and says serious players wanted the clocks and windows gone themselves.
Casinos really were built windowless and clockless. The reason everyone gives is the part that does not hold.
SEATTLE — "Seattle has the most coffee shops per capita in the US."
It does not, any more. It keeps the reputation and the headquarters. Starbucks opened at Pike Place Market on 30 March 1971 and now has more than 40,000 locations worldwide. The ranking has moved on.
→ Seattle
MIAMI — "Cruise Capital of the World."
PortMiami handled a record 8,564,225 cruise passengers in Fiscal Year 2025. Port Canaveral handled 8,602,047 in the same period — 37,822 more, a margin of about 0.44%.
Cruise Capital of the World® is a registered trademark. It is currently not a ranking.
→ Miami
DENVER — "Exactly 5,280 feet. One mile."
The marker on the Colorado State Capitol steps has moved three times: the 15th step in 1909, the 18th in 1969 after students remeasured, and the 13th in 2003. Modern GPS puts the Capitol area closer to 5,277 feet — about three feet short.
Three surveys, three answers, to a question with one correct value.
→ Denver
QUITO — "Mitad del Mundo marks the equator."
It marks the equator as calculated by the French Geodesic Mission of 1736. GPS puts the true line about 240 metres north. The nearby Intiñan Museum, which markets itself as the real thing, may also be out by around 50 metres.
Two monuments, walking distance apart, and by the strictest reading neither is exactly on it.
→ Quito
Why we keep these.
A number that survives checking is worth more than a number that was never checked. Publishing the failures is the only way to show the difference.