Merge

A Merge (also known as The Merger) is the conglomeration of the two competing tribes. This means that these tribes will now live as one in one camp for the rest of the game (Day 39, 42 in Australia). This also signals the game's halfway point and begins the Jury phase.

Merge tribes mostly comprise either 8 to 12 members various for all seasons. But in current seasons, the merge occurs at 12.

The merge serves as a halfway point of the game, where at least ten people (this varies) the two tribes will live as one new tribe until the final day of the competition. Once merged, they will receive a blank tribe banner (with a new totally new color), new buffs and poster paint (as they will be painting their banner). They would also have to christen a name for the new tribe. From this point forward, the game shifts from a team-effort competition into a individual game. The final few would then face the Jury in the Day 39 Final Tribal Council, where the Jury decides who will be the Sole Survivor.

Determining the Camp
Determining the merged tribe campsite varies almost each season. While the tribes convene for the merge, the migrating tribe will immediately relocate to the other tribe's camp, while their personal items, such as rewards, luxury items and remaining supplies are moved to the new camp. This happens when the tribes compete in a challenge, where the production crew ships the items of the tribe who will move to the new camp. Sometimes, it appeared that the camp of the starting tribe that was more dominant in challenges became the merged tribe camp.

In most seasons, the tribes pick for which camp they would like to live in. This decision mostly depends on tribes' living conditions (e.g. having more food sources, more livable shelter etc.). For example, during Survivor: Thailand, the Sook Jai tribe, who created their own shelter, moved to the Chuay Gahn campsite, because they have a cave as their natural shelter.

In other cases, the producers determines the campsite, either from one of the two existing camps (as seen in Survivor: Gabon, where the host told the new tribe to move to the old Fang camp) without any input from the contestants, or a totally new one (as seen in Survivor: The Australian Outback, Survivor: The Amazon and Survivor: Redemption Island, where the new tribe moved to an untouched beach).

In Survivor: All-Stars, the Chapera and Mogo Mogo tribes merged at the old Saboga camp (which was dismantled long before the merger). The items they have left at the old Chapera and Mogo Mogo camp are not moved to the new camp.

Challenges
Due to the nature of the merge, the game shifts from a team effort to an individual affair.

Immunity
See Individual Immunity

Reward
See Individual Reward

Ways of Merging
Over the years, there have been several ways of merging the two tribes:

"Summits:" In Survivor: Borneo and Survivor: Marquesas, one member from both tribes will convene for a "summit," where they enjoy a feast, while discussing the pros and cons of both tribe camps, under the premise that they will decide which of the two camps will they reside for the rest of the game. The two would also receive a new tribe banner, some poster paint and new buffs. After deciding the tribe camp they felt was the more livable one, the two representatives will then proceed to the tribe whose camp was not chosen, where they will fetch the contestants who live there, after which, they will proceed to the other tribe's camp.

Night-Out: In Survivor: The Australian Outback, the remaining players were segregated by gender, with the males staying at the Kucha camp, while the females spent a day at the Ogakor camp. The two groups then convene at a new camp, where their new supplies await.

Before A Challenge: The host signals a merge right before the contestants were subjected to their first post-merger challenge.

Immediate Migration: In a more straightforward way of merging, one tribe will receive a Tree Mail that instructs them to move to the other tribe's camp. In Survivor: Guatemala, after a Yaxhá Tribal Council they were instructed to go to Nakúm for the remainder of the game. In Survivor: One World, they had both tribes go to Tribal Council where both tribes merged at the end of the Tribal Council, and were instructed go to the original One World beach for the remiander of the game. After a Redemption Island Duel: This type of merge happens immediatley after a Redemption Island duel. The person voted off who wins that duel when the merge is annouced gets to go back in the game.

Fake Merge
See Fake Merge.

Early Merge
In recent season, starting with Survivor: Samoa, the merge occurs when twelve contestants are left in the game. At first it appeared that the reason for this was because in Samoa, the final twelve castaways comprised of eight former Galu and four former Foa Foa members with Galu at a supermajority. But when the early merge occured in Survivor: Nicaragua, the two tribes merged with six players each, but eight of the original La Flor members remained as opposed to the four original Espada members that remained at the time.

The early merge would occur again in Survivor: Redemption Island, but with Ometepe and Zapatera merged with seven and five members respectively, the theory that supermajorities influenced early merges would then be discarded. In Survivor: South Pacific, Savaii and Upolu were merged with six former members in each tribe.

At this point, it was assumed that the early merge twist was created to even the number of pre-merge and post-merge episodes in a 20-contestants (or 18 plus 2 returnees) format, as opposed to Survivor: Cook Islands, Survivor: Fiji, Survivor: Micronesia and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, in which there were more pre-merge episodes.

However. in Survivor: One World, the men and the women (which were the original Manono and Salani) merged at 12 contestants. This discarded the former theory, and the exact reasons for the early merge are currently unknown.

No Merge
There was one instance where a tribe severely lacked Immunity Challenge wins, and was reduced to its last member in the process. This situation has only occured once; in Survivor: Palau. In this season, Koror completely dominated and never lost an Immunity Challenge, devastating the Ulong tribe until one sole player remained on that tribe. That player would be absorbed by Koror, after which, the individual portion of the game commenced. Therefore, no merge occured at all this season. A theory is that in order to prevent such incident in the future, the early merge format was devised.

Merged Tribes

 * Rattana
 * Barramundi
 * Moto Maji
 * Soliantu
 * Chuay Jai
 * Jacaré
 * Balboa
 * Chaboga Mogo
 * Alinta
 * Xhakúm
 * Gitanos
 * Aitutonga
 * Bula Bula
 * Hae Da Fung
 * Dabu
 * Nobag
 * Forza
 * Aiga
 * Yin Yang
 * Libertad
 * Murlonio
 * Te Tuna
 * Tikiano
 * Dangrayne

Trivia

 * The members of the Rattana tribe painted the Survivor: Borneo logo on their flag.
 * On the merge flag, members usually put the tribe name and names of the members and sometimes a picture.
 * The most frequent merged tribe color is black with 7 seasons featuring this color.
 * Gitanos was the first merged tribe to paint their flag in a portrait type fashion.
 * Chuay Jai had the least amount of tribe members with 8.
 * Chaboga Mogo, Aitutonga, and Nobag are the only tribes to merge with 9 tribe members.
 * Aiga, Libertad, Murlonio, Te Tuna, and Tikiano have the most amount of tribe members with 12.
 * The merge of Survivor: Philippines is the only merge to have 11 tribe members.
 * Survivor: Palau is the only season to have No Merge.