“Regional magazines [like Saltscapes, pictured above] capitalize on the fascination with 'things local' and also benefit from strong local advertising,” said Trish Hagood, president of Oxbridge Communications in a release “Many regional magazines are also pitched to an upscale audience making them doubly attractive to readers and advertisers.”

There are 1,126 regional magazines in Canada and the U.S. today, outnumbering all other categories in North America for the second year in a row. This, according to the new edition of The National Directory of Magazines, set to be released next week. The directory divides magazines into 260 categories and includes information on 20,590 titles, including 16,596 magazines, tabloids, specialized newspapers and major journals that carry advertising.

The fastest growing categories over the last five years are home magazines (83 to 241), snow and ice sports (51 to106) and nursing magazines (92 to 177). Showing the sharpest decline over the five year are news publications (75 to 46) and management magazines (127 to 86).

The top ten categories, in terms of the number of titles published, are:

1. Regional (1,126)
2. Medicine (1,119)
3. Ethnic (952)
4. Religion & Theology (772)
5. Travel (735)
6. Business & Industry (626)
7. College Alumni (532)
8. Automotive (492)
9. Health & Fitness (488)
10. College Student Press (435)

The National Directory of Magazines is the "largest and most complete directory of U.S. and Canadian magazines, tabloids and major journals." It's published by Oxbridge Communications and priced at $995 for the print edition, $1,195 for the Single-User CD and $1,995 for both print directory and CD. It is also available online as part of the MediaFinder online database service at $1,295 for a year’s single-user subscription, $795 for six months.