email commentsNames of countries are supplied in geopolitical_feature. Also supplied are names of dependent areas. In general, the conventional short form of the country name is used. Exceptions are documented in Differences in the Three Lists.
Formal names, former names, codes, etc. are included in earth_surface_feature_alias.
For convenience, a table of Country Names and Codes is included here.
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ReferencesThere are three useful lists of country names that were used to develop the reference data:
United Nations List
ISO 3166-1
The World Factbook
Differences among the names are documented in Differences in the Three Lists.
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The country names are recorded in Epicentre entity geopolitical_feature. The codes (and alternate names) are recorded in earth_surface_feature_alias.
[ A-E | F-J | K-O | P-S | T-Z ]
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Where possible, the ISO 3166-1 short form name was used. This includes many island groups and dependencies as well as countries. Many other island groups were added to geopolitical_feature based on the CIA World Factbook.
| Differences | Reason |
|---|---|
| Groups differ in coverage | The United Nations contains only member nations. The ISO 3166 contains many dependencies and island groups in addition. The World Factbook contains additional areas - such as island groups of importance to the US. |
| Bahamas | The World Factbook uses "The Bahamas." |
| Brunei Darussalam | The World Factbook uses "Brunei," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Burkina Faso | The World Factbook considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form |
| Cote d'Ivoire | The ISO name is Côte d'Ivoire. The small o circumflex (ô) symbol is not in the 7 bit character set. |
| Democratic People's Republic of Korea | The World Factbook uses "North Korea," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Falkland Islands (Malvinas) | The World Factbook uses "Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas)." |
| French Southern Territories | The World Factbook uses "French Southern and Antarctic Lands." |
| Gambia | The World Factbook uses "The Gambia." |
| Holy See (Vatican City State) | The World Factbook uses "Holy See (Vatican City)." |
| Islamic Republic of Iran | The United Nations and the World Factbook use "Iran," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Lao People's Democratic Republic | The World Factbook uses "Laos," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Kazakstan | Spelled Kazakhstan in United Nations and World Factbook. A recent change in the ISO document. |
| Kyrgyzstan | The United Nations uses "Kyrgyz Republic," which is ISO Official Name. |
| Libyan Arab Jamahiriya | The United Nations and the World Factbook use "Libya," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Macedonia | The official name is "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." This name is 41 characters -- too long for Epicentre. |
| Myanmar | The World Factbook uses the old name, "Burma." |
| Pitcairn | The World Factbook uses "Pitcairn Islands." The name was changed since its publication to Pitcairn. |
| Republic of Korea | The World Factbook uses "South Korea," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Republic of Moldova | The World Factbook uses "Moldova," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form |
| Russian Federation | The World Factbook uses "Russia," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form |
| Samoa | The World Factbook use "Western Samoa." |
| Slovakia | The United Nations uses "Slovak Republic." |
| South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands | The ISO name and World Factbook name is "South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands." This is 44 characters long. It was shortened to fit into 40 characters. |
| Svalbard | The ISO document combines Svalbard and Jan Mayen |
| Jan Mayen | The ISO document combines Svalbard and Jan Mayen |
| Syrian Arab Republic | The United Nations and the World Factbook use "Syria," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Taiwan, Province of China | The World Factbook uses "Taiwan." |
| United Republic of Tanzania | The World Factbook uses "Tanzania," and considers the ISO name to be the conventional long form. |
| Viet Nam | The World Factbook uses "Vietnam." |
| U.S. Virgin Islands | The World Factbook uses "Virgin Islands." |
| Yugoslavia | The World Factbook uses the name "Serbia and Montenegro," because the US government takes the position that Yugoslavia no longer exists. |
| Several Island Groups | The ISO document combines several minor island groups into "United States Minor Outlying Islands." Epicentre and the World Factbook treat these groups separately. |
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Changes to geopolitical_feature and ref_geopolitical_area
| Change | Description | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|
| state or province | In ref_geopolitical_area, "state" and "province" were deprecated and replaced with "state or province." It was decided that they meant the same thing. | Change description for "state" and "province" to "Deprecated in V2.1. Use 'state or province.'" Add 'state or province' to the ref_geopolitical_feature values. |
| Brunei Darussalam | Changed Brunei to Brunei Darussalam | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Brunei Darussalam' where name = 'Brunei'; |
| Cocos (Keeling) Islands | Changed Cocos Islands to Cocos (Keeling) Islands | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Cocos (Keeling) Islands' where name = 'Cocos Islands'; |
| North Korea | Changed North Korea to Democratic People's Republic of Korea | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Democratic People''s Republic of Korea' where name = 'North Korea'; |
| Distrito Federal | Removed Districto Federal. Destrito Federal already existed | Change description in Districto Federal to 'Deprecated in V2.1.' |
| East Timor | Added East Timor (new country) | Add East Timor to the geopolitical_features. |
| European Union | Changed European Community to European Union | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'European Union' where name = 'European Community'; |
| Falkland Islands | Changed Falkland Islands to Falkland Islands (Malvinas) | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Falkland Islands (Malvinas)' where name = 'Falkland Islands'; |
| Micronesia | Changed Micronesia to Federated States of Micronesia | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Federated States of Micronesia' where name = 'Micronesia'; |
| French Guiana | Changed French Guyana to French Guiana | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'French Guiana' where name = 'French Guyana'; |
| French Southern Territories | Changed French Southern and Anarctic Lands to French Southern Territories | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'French Southern Territories' where name = 'French Southern and Anarctic Lands'; |
| Holy See | Changed Vatican City to Holy See (Vatican City State) | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Holy See (Vatican City State)' where name = 'Vatican City'; |
| Iran | Changed Iran to Islamic Republic of Iran | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Islamic Republic of Iran' where name = 'Iran'; |
| Kazakstan | Changed Kazakhstan to Kazakstan | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Kazakstan' where name = 'Kazakhstan'; |
| Laos | Changed Laos to Lao People's Democratic Republic | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Lao People''s Democratic Republic' where name = 'Laos'; |
| Libya | Changed Libya to Libyan Arab Jamahiriya | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Libyan Arab Jamahiriya' where name = 'Libya'; |
| Moldova | Changed Moldova to Republic of Moldova | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Republic of Moldova' where name = 'Moldova'; |
| Northern Territory | Changed a misspelling | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Northern Territory' where name = 'Norther Territory'; |
| Palau | Palau had an extra space at the end | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Palau' where name = 'Palau '; |
| Pitcairn | Changed Pitcairn Islands to Pitcairn | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Pitcairn' where name = 'Pitcairn Islands'; |
| South Korea | Changed South Korea to Republic of Korea | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Republic of Korea' where name = 'South Korea'; |
| Russian Federation | Changed Russia to Russian Federation | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Russian Federation' where name = 'Russia'; |
| Samoa | Changed Western Samoa to Samoa | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Samoa' where name = 'Western Samoa'; |
| Yugoslavia | Changed Serbia and Montenegro to Yugoslavia | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Yugoslavia' where name = 'Serbia and Montenegro'; |
| Syria | Changed Syria to Syrian Arab Republic | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Syrian Arab Republic' where name = 'Syria'; |
| Taiwan | Changed Taiwan to Taiwan, Province of China | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Taiwan, Province of China' where name = 'Taiwan'; |
| Tanzania | Changed Tanzania to United Republic of Tanzania | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'United Republic of Tanzania' where name = 'Tanzania'; |
| U.S. Virgin Islands | Changed Virgin Islands to U.S. Virgin Islands | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'U.S. Virgin Islands' where name = 'Virgin Islands'; |
| Viet Nam | Changed Vietnam to Viet Nam | Update geopolitical_feature set name = 'Viet Nam' where name = 'Vietnam'; |
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