Sneaker Geography, or, where did these came from?

I was sitting in my room, thinking about whether certain shoes or shirts are made here or imported. While the answer for most of what I care about is "imported", that begs the question, but from where? The answer is actually "a lot of different places". The shoes mentioned here can be seen on my other page, SnkrGallery. Sorry, it's a bit slow, WebAssembly.

For my two pairs of Cortez, the same place, Indonesia. Vietnam handles my Dunk and AF1, as well as the Fear of God II from Adidas. The other three all come from China: the Mostro, and the two Jordan 1s. Perhaps most interesting, and something only true obsessive sneaker collectors could care about, is where in China. Using the Jordans as an example, the Jordan 5 came from Shenzhen, identifiable by the "SZ" written on the inner size label. The 1, however, came from Qingdao, with “XC” on the label. Does this matter? No, and in fact, you may see the same model from different factories or countries, depending on how big the order was. General releases will have a much wider origin, while limited releases will most likely come from the same place, logistics, and all that.

Perhaps the only other time I hear about the country (and city) of origin is when people are discussing "reps", or replicas. Essentially, the same shoes the big brands make, same materials, design, assembly, but not actually sold by them. Not a knockoff, but something better. I do happen to have some interesting philosophical ideas with replicas, but this will be for another day. This weekend is an odd one with two posts already.