United Nations geoscheme
UN system for grouping the world's 248 countries and territories into regions and subregions From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The United Nations geoscheme is a system that divides 248 countries and territories in the world into six continental regions, 22 geographical subregions, and two intermediary regions.[1] It was devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) based on the M49 coding classification.[2] The creators note that "the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories".[2]
The UNSD geoscheme was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to continents.[2] Within each region, smaller geographical subregions and sometimes intermediary regions contain countries and territories. Countries and territories are also grouped non-geographically into selected economic and other sets, such as the landlocked developing countries, the least developed countries, and the Small Island Developing States.
Antarctica does not comprise any geographical subregions or country-level areas.
The UNSD geoscheme does not set a standard for the entire United Nations System, and it often differs from geographical definitions used by the autonomous United Nations specialized agencies for their own organizational convenience. For instance, the UNSD includes Cyprus and Georgia in Western Asia, yet the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and UNESCO include them in Europe.[3][4] This statistical definition also differs from United Nations Regional Groups.
Alternative groupings include the World Bank regional classification,[5] CIA World Factbook regions and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Geographic Regions.[6][7][8]
Maps
Africa
Northern Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Eastern Africa
Middle Africa
Southern Africa
Western Africa
Americas
Latin America and the Caribbean
Caribbean
Anguilla[a]
Antigua and Barbuda
Aruba[b]
Bahamas
Barbados- Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba[c]
British Virgin Islands[a]
Cayman Islands[a]
Cuba
Curaçao[b]
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Grenada
Guadeloupe[d]
Haiti
Jamaica
Martinique[d]
Montserrat[a]
Puerto Rico[e]
Saint Barthélemy[f]
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin (French part)[f]
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Sint Maarten (Dutch part)[b]
Trinidad and Tobago
Turks and Caicos Islands[a]
United States Virgin Islands[g]
Central America
South America
Argentina
Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
Bouvet Island[h]
Brazil
Chile
Colombia
Ecuador
Falkland Islands[a]
French Guiana[d]
Guyana
Paraguay
Peru
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands[a]
Suriname
Uruguay
Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
Northern America
Asia
Summarize
Perspective
Central Asia
Eastern Asia
Note on Taiwan
Several institutions and research papers using classification schemes based on the UN geoscheme include Taiwan separately in their divisions of Eastern Asia.
- The Unicode CLDR's "Territory Containment (UN M.49)" includes Taiwan in its presentation of the UN M.49.[9]
- The public domain map data set Natural Earth has metadata in the fields named "region_un" and "subregion" for Taiwan.
- The regional split recommended by Lloyd's of London for Eastern Asia (UN statistical divisions of Eastern Asia) contains Taiwan.[10]
- Based on the United Nations statistical divisions, the APRICOT (conference) includes Taiwan in East Asia.[11]
- Studying Website Usability in Asia, Ather Nawaz and Torkil Clemmensen select Asian countries on the basis of United Nations statistical divisions, and Taiwan is also included.[12]
- Taiwan is also included in the UN Geoscheme of Eastern Asia in one systematic review on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.[13]
Northern Asia
This subregion covers the entire geographical region of Siberia. Since this region as a whole falls under the transcontinental country of Russia, for statistical convenience, Russia is assigned under Eastern Europe by the UNSD, including both European Russia and Asian Russia under a single subregion. Hence there is no geopolitical entity that is currently grouped under Northern Asia.
South-eastern Asia
This subregion covers the geographical regions of Indochinese Peninsula and Malay Archipelago, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:
Southern Asia
This subregion covers the geographical regions spanning from the Iranian Plateau till the Indian subcontinent, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:
Western Asia
This subregion covers the geographical regions spanning from Anatolia, Caucasus, Levant, Mesopotamia till the Arabian Peninsula, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:
Europe
Summarize
Perspective
Eastern Europe
† Although Russia is a transcontinental country covering Northern Asia as well, for statistical convenience, Russia is assigned under Eastern Europe by UNSD, including both European Russia and Siberian Russia under a single subregion.
Northern Europe
Southern Europe
Western Europe
Oceania
Australia and New Zealand
Melanesia
Micronesia
Polynesia
See also
Notes
- Part of the Dutch Caribbean and a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands
- Part of the Dutch Caribbean, the Caribbean Netherlands and a public body within the Kingdom of the Netherlands
- An overseas department and region of France
- A commonwealth and unincorporated territory of the United States
- An overseas collectivity of France
- An unincorporated and organized territory of the United States
- A constituent country within the Danish Realm
References
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