How does SE have 233, 119, and 117 sites?

Question

While browsing on slow internet at another person's house, there was a little bit of lag when I clicked on the site switcher. It was enough to trigger the tooltip. What it read surprised me:

A list of all 233 Stack Exchange Sites

But wait... don't we only have 117 sites? I'd imagine that this is a simple bug, but it's very misleading. Another thing I noticed while investigating is all the other site switchers have 119 sites on the tooltip. I haven't actually counted.

Why hasn't this been fixed? 233 is with metas, 117 is sites, and 119 is sites with A51/StackApps/Careers 2.0 (not sure which isn't counted). I'm changing this to a feature-request.

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Proposal:

Change the site switcher on the main page to 119 and then change the 117 quote to this:

117 topics

That would clarify it a lot. We don't really need the 233 number, especially since not all metas show up on the site switcher.

Answer 1

The tooltip will now be consistent with the rest of the network (minus the occasional blip that will occur as we launch sites):

Answer 2

Here's the explanation:

There are 119 sites in the drop-down menu, there are 117 sites listed as Q&A sites under stackexchange.com/sites. The two sites that are not there are Area 51 (which is still linked in the footer, but is not a Q&A site) and Mathematics Educators, which is in private beta at the time of writing this answer.

The 233 that is the tooltip of the drop-down on stackexchange.com is a bit misleading, though, as there are only 119 sites + any meta sites you have added to your communities and you can't even edit your communities on that page. The number 233 seems to come from this list of sites:

Academia
Academia Meta
Amateur Radio
Amateur Radio Meta
Android Enthusiasts
Android Enthusiasts Meta
Anime and Manga
Anime and Manga Meta
Arduino Meta Stack Exchange
Arduino Stack Exchange
Arqade
Arqade Meta
Ask Different
Ask Different Meta
Ask Patents
Ask Patents Meta
Ask Ubuntu
Ask Ubuntu Meta
Astronomy
Astronomy Meta
Audio-Video Production
Audio-Video Production Meta
Aviation
Aviation Meta
Beer Meta Stack Exchange
Beer Stack Exchange
Biblical Hermeneutics
Biblical Hermeneutics Meta
Bicycles
Bicycles Meta
Biology
Biology Meta
Bitcoin
Bitcoin Meta
Blender
Blender Meta
Board and Card Games
Board and Card Games Meta
Chemistry
Chemistry Meta
Chess
Chess Meta
Chinese Language
Chinese Language Meta
Christianity
Christianity Meta
Code Review
Code Review Meta
Cognitive Sciences
Cognitive Sciences Meta
Computational Science
Computational Science Meta
Computer Science
Computer Science Meta
Cooking
Cooking Meta
Cryptography
Cryptography Meta
Database Administrators
Database Administrators Meta
Drupal Answers
Drupal Answers Meta
Ebooks
Ebooks Meta
Electrical Engineering
Electronics Meta
English
English Language and Usage Meta
English Language Learners
English Language Learners Meta
Expatriates Meta Stack Exchange
Expatriates Stack Exchange
ExpressionEngine® Answers
ExpressionEngine® Answers Meta
Freelancing
Freelancing Meta
French Language
French Language Meta
Game Development
Game Development Meta
Gardening and Landscaping
Gardening and Landscaping Meta
Genealogy and Family History
Genealogy and Family History Meta
German Language
German Language Meta
GIS
GIS Meta
Graphic Design
Graphic Design Meta
History
History Meta
Home Improvement
Home Improvement Meta
Homebrewing
Homebrewing Meta
Islam
Islam Meta
IT Security
IT Security Meta
Italian Language
Italian Language Meta
Japanese Language
Japanese Language Meta
LEGO® Answers
LEGO® Answers Meta
Linguistics
Linguistics Meta
Magento
Magento Meta
Martial Arts
Martial Arts Meta
Mathematica
Mathematica Meta
Mathematics
Mathematics Meta
Mathematics Educators
Mathematics Educators Meta
MathOverflow
MathOverflow Meta
Meta Server Fault
Meta Stack Overflow
Meta Super User
Mi Yodeya
Mi Yodeya Meta
Motor Vehicle Maintenance and Repair
Motor Vehicle Maintenance and Repair Meta
Movies and TV
Movies and TV Meta
Musical Practice and Performance
Musical Practice and Performance Meta
Network Engineering
Network Engineering Meta
Open Data
Open Data Meta
Parenting
Parenting Meta
Personal Finance and Money
Personal Finance and Money Meta
Personal Productivity
Personal Productivity Meta
Pets
Pets Meta
Philosophy
Philosophy Meta
Photography
Photography and Photographic Editing Meta
Physical Fitness
Physical Fitness Meta
Physics
Physics Meta
Poker
Poker Meta
Politics
Politics Meta
Programmers
Programmers Meta
Programming Puzzles and Code Golf
Programming Puzzles and Code Golf Meta
Project Management
Project Management Meta
Quantitative Finance
Quantitative Finance Meta
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi Meta
Reverse Engineering
Reverse Engineering Meta
Robotics
Robotics Meta
Role-playing Games
Role-playing Games Meta
Russian Language
Russian Language Meta
Salesforce
Salesforce Meta
Science Fiction and Fantasy
Science Fiction and Fantasy Meta
Server Fault
SharePoint
SharePoint Meta
Signal Processing
Signal Processing Meta
Skeptics
Skeptics Meta
Software Quality Assurance and Testing
Software Quality Assurance and Testing Meta
Software Recommendations Meta Stack Exchange
Software Recommendations Stack Exchange
Sound Design
Sound Design Meta
Space Exploration
Space Exploration Meta
Spanish Language
Spanish Language Meta
Sports
Sports Meta
Stack Apps
Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow em Português
Stack Overflow em Português Meta
Statistical Analysis
Statistical Analysis Meta
Super User
Sustainable Living
Sustainable Living Meta
TeX - LaTeX
TeX Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors Meta
The Workplace
The Workplace Meta
Theoretical Computer Science
Theoretical Computer Science Meta
Tor
Tor Meta
Travel Answers
Travel Answers Meta
Tridion
Tridion Meta
Unix and Linux
Unix and Linux Meta
User Experience
User Experience Meta
Web Applications
Web Applications Meta
Webmasters
Webmasters Meta
Windows Phone
Windows Phone Meta
WordPress
WordPress Meta
Writers
Writers Meta