Eagle Scout Class of 2016, by the numbers

There were 55,186 Eagle Scouts in 2016. That’s the fourth-largest Eagle Scout class ever — surpassed only by 2012, 2010 and 2013 — and represents a 1.5 percent increase over 2015.

Just think about that for a sec: 55,186 Eagle Scouts. Each one has his own story of the challenging but rewarding journey to Scouting’s highest honor. These young men have come far, but I must remind my fellow Eagle Scouts that the journey is only beginning.

This is one of my favorite blog posts to write each year — a deep dive into the newest class of Eagle Scouts. This week, we’ll look at the numbers behind the number:

• Total number of service project hours Eagle Scouts recorded in 2016
• Region-by-region Eagle numbers
• Coming Wednesday: Number of Eagle Scouts per year, from 1912 to 2016
• Coming Thursday: State-by-state Eagle rankings
• Coming Friday: The average age of 2016’s Eagle Scouts

Before continuing, let’s give a big hand to the BSA’s Mike Lo Vecchio, who provides me with these Eagle Scout stats each year.

How many young men became Eagle Scouts in 2016?

Exactly 55,186 young men became Eagle Scouts in 2016.

The total is a 1.5 percent increase over last year’s Eagle Scout count (54,366), but it’s 6.3 percent less than the all-time high of 58,659 in 2012. That year’s count was inflated as Scouts hurried to finish requirements in time for the 100th anniversary of the Eagle Scout award. (And get the 2012 Eagle Scout patch only given to guys who earned Eagle that year.)

How many service hours did the 2016 Eagle Scout Class record while working on Eagle projects?

Young men who earned Eagle in 2016 combined to record 9,156,368 hours of service on Eagle projects.

That’s an average of 165.9 hours of service per Eagle project. (By the way, that’s a 6.1 percent increase over 2015’s 156.4 hours per project. That means Scouts are doing more service!)

With the value of volunteer time at $23.56 an hour, that means Eagle Scouts and the volunteers they led contributed — drumroll, please — more than $215.7 million worth of time working on these projects.

Here’s the service hours broken down by region:

Which region had the most Eagle Scouts in 2016?

Congrats to the Western Region! You again took home the crown as the region with the most Eagle Scouts. The Western Region boasted an impressive 18,073 Eagle Scouts last year.

Here’s how the other regions fared:

How many young men have become Eagle Scouts in past years?

Check back Wednesday for the number of Eagle Scouts by year — 1912 to 2016.

Which state had the most Eagle Scouts in 2016?

Check back Thursday to find out which state emerged victorious.

What was the average age of 2016 Eagle Scouts?

Check back Friday to find out the official number.

Eagle Scout Class of 2016, by the numbers