First of all, thanks for bringing this to my attention. Because of the replies in this question, I finally found some logic in the order of countries as shown on the Maps tab. I always thought them to be quite random.
As I have 'collected' 75 countries so far, I wanted to share some of my findings regarding this topic. First of all, the general order seems to be:
- Your own country
- Continent maps
- Individual country maps (only if they have subregions (states/provinces) defined on PGC)
I can't find any logic in the order of continents: it is not alphabetical, not based on the country with the most finds, not based on the total number of countries and also not based on the percentage of found countries. If anyone finds any logic, the current order of continents on my profile is:
Europe (35/55), North America (13/42), Africa (5/53), Asia (13/54), Oceania (7/23)
(For those doing the math: this indeed doesn't add up to 75, this is because some countries are not included in any continent for some reason (already sent a bug report about this some time ago). Also, Russia and Turkey are included in both Europe and Asia)
For the individual countries, the order is indeed as you describe (based on the highest number of finds in a region), but there is an exception to this, like hzoi mentioned as well. For me, one country (San Marino) ends up at the bottom of the list for some reason while it shouldn't be there based on the previous theory. My idea is that this might be because, if I recall correctly, the subregions for both San Marino and Jersey were determined quite recent so it might be that they end up at the bottom of the list for that reason.
Would be nice to get any of this confirmed by a moderator.