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I love this question! The biggest differences and similarities between the Boy Scouts of America and other countries scouts cover a spectrum. There are many similarities, and also some distinct differences. There are approximately 31 million members in the World of Scouting Movement, and all but 5 countries (N. Korea, Cuba, Laos, China, and Andorra) have a scouting presence or national organization. I’ve met a number of scouts from a number of countries in my trips abroad and also at the 1983 World Jamboree. Even so, I have no idea what the scouts in Nepal are like, nor do I know if the scouts in Tonga have a scuba diving merit badge. One of the beauties of scouting and its spread around the globe over the last 110 years is that it has a core set of values that we all adhere to, like the scout oath and law, but each nation or territory also puts their own cultural flavor onto the program. Some things I have noticed:Indonesia has more “scouts” than every other country on earth. Yep, more than the combined totals of everyone else - by two to one (21 million to 10 million). It’s their national youth program and they love it. Imagine what it would be like in the USA if it had TEN times as many boy scouts as it currently does…The Boy Scouts have a hard core patch trading and collecting community that leaves the rest of the world miles behind. There are collectors in the United States that have patch collections worth millions of dollars. I’ve been to the equivalent of the national scouting museum in the UK and it’s the size of a small house, while in the US I’ve been to individual camps that have a local museum twice that size, and the US National museum is 20X as large. We Boy Scouts tend to treat our uniforms that way as well. Some of us look like a Napoleonic Field Marshall with rows of medals, pins, patches and awards. As we like to joke in the BSA, there’s a patch for everything, and every event. Most foreign uniforms, in contrast, look cool with a certain zen sparseness to them. That’s not a put down. I love trading uniform shirts with foreign scouts.The BSA owns a lot of Boy Scout camps, even after selling off a majority of them over the last 4 decades. Philmont Scout ranch in New Mexico is a massive 140,000 acres (219 square miles) all by itself. That makes it larger than the country of Andorra (which doesn’t have a Boy Scout program). Canada’s largest scout camp is 5,000 acres in size. The UK’s largest scout camp is about 400 acres.The BSA’s older youth programs (Venturing, Sea Scouting and Exploring) all end at age 21, while many other countries have their Rover program continue to age 25.The BSA has over 130 different “Merit Badges” a scout can earn. Many more than the 21 needed to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. The current badges span many topics, skills, and interests, although I wish they would still allow you to earn some of the ones they retired years ago, like Pigeon Raising, Bee Keeping, Taxidermy, and Blacksmithing. The UK, in contrast only has about 75 “activity” badges. I love that they have badges for Circus Skills, Cave Exploration, and Dragon Boating. Australia offers only about 40 “target” and “proficiency” badges. Canada has really de-emphasized their 16 “personal achievement” badges as part of their core program, and mainly focuses on scouts earning their 9 “adventure skills” badges, each of which has 9 skill levels. Regardless of what these badges are called, every scout program around the world teaches and has “merit badges” for camping, hiking, aquatics, first aid, and other core scout skills.Lastly, the scout oath, law, and motto, although translated and adapted all around the world, pretty much contain the same core values. The motto is “Be Prepared”. The oath includes being a responsible citizen. The scout law includes being trustworthy and helpful. Also, one of the largest and fastest growing parts of scouting all around the world is its Messengers of Peace program.

What is the difference from Boy Scouts and Girl Scout?Jay Kruemcke gave an excellent answer about Boy Scouts but I want to expand a bit about Girl Scouts.I will preface this by saying that I have 3 sons and 1 daughter and was involved with BSA in many roles from den leader and pack committee chairman to advancement chairman, troop committee chairman and asst. scoutmaster in my sons’ troops and trained leaders for about 8 years, being awarded the Silver Beaver for my work with BSA. I also led a Venture Crew for 2 years. Then, when my sons grew up, I went back to working with Webelos Scouts for 5 years, but eventually stopped volunteering for BSA about 7 years ago. Not that I didn’t like the program, I just decided to do other things with my time.My real love is volunteering with Girl Scouts. I am a lifetime member and have been active as a leader, Service Unit Manager, international trainer (yes, I’ve trained in 13 other countries as well as 5 different US states), for over 29 years. I’ve been awarded the Thanks Badge for my volunteer work in Girl Scouts.Girl Scout MissionGirl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.Girl Scout PromiseOn my honor, I will try:To serve God and my country,To help people at all times,And to live by the Girl Scout Law.Girl Scout LawI will do my best to behonest and fair,friendly and helpful,considerate and caring,courageous and strong, andresponsible for what I say and do,and torespect myself and others,respect authority,use resources wisely,make the world a better place, andbe a sister to every Girl Scout.Girl Scouts teaches skills in 4 areas that make up the “Girl Scout Leadership Experience”:· Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)· Outdoors· Life Skills· EntrepreneurshipGirl Scouts believes it’s important to learn by doing, so there’s not a lot of lecture nor reading involved (although there are books and online resources available).Girl Scouts divides its program into 6 age levels:Daisy (Kindergarten - 1st grade)Brownie (2nd-3rd grade)Junior (4th-5th grade)Cadette (6th, 7th, 8th grade)Senior (9th-10th grade)Ambassador (11th-12th grade)The program itself it designed around Girl Scout Journeys, multi-step programs that are laid out for leaders much like lesson plans are for teachers, and is generally carried out in weekly meetings with the girls. The journeys are in 3 areas: It’s Your World—Change It! which encourages girls to make the world a better place and make new friends along the way; “It’s Your Planet, Love It!” about environment topics; and It’s Your Story, Tell It! which helps girls explore themselves, developing good values, finding their own hopes, dreams, and interests.Along the way, each journey has the girls work as a group and helps them:· Learn some basic facts about a subject· Identify a problem they want to do something about· Come up with a creative solution that will make a difference· Create a team plan to make that solution a reality· Put their plan into action· Share what they learned and did with othersIn addition to the Journeys, there are badges the girls can earn that are specific to their age level in Girl Scouts on a variety of subjects. Some are about traditional subjects such as first aid, hiking, camping, pets, art, home skills, etc. but others are about topics that are different: Business Ettiquette, Digital Photographer, Geocacher, Cross Training, Locavore, Textile Design, Financing My Future, Website Designer, and many others.From an early age, girls start choosing what to do in Girl Scouts and gradually learn to plan all of their own activities and meetings. By the time they are in high school, they really use leaders mostly for advice and for transportation.Most girls participate in Girl Scout in troops, made up of about 15 girls (at the Daisy level) to 30 or more girls (at Senior and Ambassador level). Most troops have 2-3 leaders, but have a variety of parents and other adults who come in occasionally and help them with their expertise in various areas. So, a leader is not expected to be an expert in car repair, genealogy and wood working, but she can help the girls find those experts to come help them out when they want to explore a topic.I say “most girls” because councils (the local GS professionals who help the leaders and girls) also generally run programs that are short term and/or designed to help girls and families in need, using the same “journeys and badges” model.As girls get older, in addition to Girl Scout camp, there are travel opportunities called Girl Scout Destinations open to girls 11 and older. These are programs, generally set up by councils in various parts of the country and internationally that last 10 days to 3 weeks and which girls apply for. Some are run by companies but have Girl Scout adults as chaperones. Individual girls go on these trips and are met by adult Girl Scout leaders and the girls are well chaperoned the whole trip. Some must be funded by the girl herself, some are funded by the councils or by grants, many have scholarships that can be applied for. The Destinations vary from year to year. Some available for 2018 include: dogsledding in Minnesota in the winter, scuba & sea turtle adventure in Panama, horseback riding in Mongolia, Tall Ship Sail School on Lake Erie, Space Academy in Alabama, Camp Fury – a high adventure immersion experience in the life of elite women of the fire and police services.Girl Scouts also teaches advocacy. Girls are encouraged to work towards what they want to happen and make changes in the world. While they don’t encourage any one area of advocacy, they encourage becoming involved in general and help the girls learn how to make contacts and speak with governmental representatives.Some of the differences I see in the 2 programs are:· Boy Scouts need a sponsoring organization/church/business to charter a troop or pack, Girl Scouts don’t have sponsoring organizations. They do appreciate donations, though.· Boy Scouts has had the same tried and true method of earning of ranks and badges for many years. They tweak it and their uniforms slightly from time to time, add new badges and retire old ones, but generally have a very similar program to that of many years ago. Not exactly the same, but very similar. Girl Scouts is constantly changing their program to fit the times. In 2002 they introduced a whole new program for girls 11–17 and called the whole age group “Studio 2B”. They mixed all the girls together and focused on activities rather than any sort of badge work. Then they decided that wasn’t working and by 2008 the program was gone and they returned to 2–3 year age groups with separate names. They have a whole research arm of the organization (the Girl Scout Research Institute) to investigate trends, girls and what they want, leaders and what they need to run a good program, etc. They change their uniforms every few years, even changing the colors of uniforms. This is not necessarily a good thing, but it’s the way Girl Scouts operates.· Boy Scouts use a patrol (den for younger boys) form of government. Girl Scouts choose their own form of government and can change from year to year and even during the year or choose a particular type of government for a particular project or event. Sometimes they use patrols, but sometime they use a town meeting or circle type of government, sometimes an executive board, or sometimes they invent their own way of governing.· Boy Scouts tends to have multiple age levels within the same pack/troop. Girl Scouts tends to have just 2 grade levels together in a troop. (Although in some areas age levels ARE mixed together; it’s allowed, it’s just not commonly done.)· Boy Scouts focuses on developing skills and becoming competent at them. Their badges focus on learning particular subjects well. Girl Scouts focuses on relationships between the girls, learning to communicate well with others and uses the badges to help the girls explore a variety of interests. The Girl Scout badges don’t focus on any level of proficiency.· Boy Scouts earn ranks and badges. Girl Scouts earn badges, complete journeys and earn some special awards.· Boy Scouts have national jamborees where specially set up troops attend about every 4 years nationally, and internationally every 4 years on a different schedule. Girl Scouts have Girl Scout Destinations for individual girls every year.· Boy Scouts now allows girls in its program at all age levels. Girl Scouts remains a program only for girls.