Some countries are so vast philatelically that collectors break them down into more bite sized units. Some philatelists try to collect all of the German area, but with over a million collectible varieties by the Michel catalog, the latest Lighthouse specialty albums for this country runs to over 25 volumes and has a retail value for the albums alone of over $5,000 (a price for albums that is more than the value of most collections that are in them). So collectors have divided Germany and Area into several main categories