United Nations geoscheme

Not to be confused with United Nations Regional Groups.
Further information: List of countries and territories by the United Nations geoscheme

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

Main article: Africa
Further information: List of regions of Africa
See also: Regions of the African Union

Northern Africa

Main article: North Africa
Further information: Macaronesia, Maghreb, and Mashriq
See also: Greater Middle East and Middle East and North Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Main article: Sub-Saharan Africa

Eastern Africa

Main article: East Africa
Further information: Horn of Africa
See also: Comoro Islands and Mascarene Islands

Middle Africa

Main article: Central Africa
Further information: Cameroon line

Southern Africa

Main article: Southern Africa

Western Africa

Main article: West Africa
Further information: Macaronesia

Americas

Main article: Americas

Latin America and the Caribbean

Main article: Latin America and the Caribbean
Further information: Latin America
See also: List of regions of Latin America

Caribbean

Main articles: Caribbean and West Indies
Further information: Antilles, Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles, and Lucayan Archipelago
See also: Leeward Antilles, Leeward Islands, and Windward Islands

Central America

Main article: Central America
Further information: Middle America (Americas)

South America

Main article: South America
Further information: Caribbean South America, Southern Cone, and The Guianas

Northern America

Main article: Northern America
Further information: Anglo-America
See also: Western world

Asia

Main article: Asia
Further information: Far East

Central Asia

Main article: Central Asia
Further information: Inner Asia

Eastern Asia

Main article: East Asia
Further information: Far East and Northeast Asia
See also: Greater China, Japanese Archipelago, Korea, and Mongol heartland

Note on Taiwan

Main article: Political status of Taiwan
Further information: Cross-strait relations
See also: Taiwan Area

Several institutions and research papers using classification schemes based on the UN geoscheme include Taiwan separately in their divisions of Eastern Asia.

  1. The Unicode CLDR's "Territory Containment (UN M.49)" includes Taiwan in its presentation of the UN M.49.[9]
  2. The public domain map data set Natural Earth has metadata in the fields named "region_un" and "subregion" for Taiwan.
  3. The regional split recommended by Lloyd's of London for Eastern Asia (UN statistical divisions of Eastern Asia) contains Taiwan.[10]
  4. Based on the United Nations statistical divisions, the APRICOT (conference) includes Taiwan in East Asia.[11]
  5. 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]
  6. Taiwan is also included in the UN Geoscheme of Eastern Asia in one systematic review on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.[13]

Note on Northern Asia

Main article: North Asia
Further information: Siberia and Russian Far East
See also: Far North (Russia) and Russian conquest of Siberia

This unofficial 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

Main article: Southeast Asia
Further information: Far East, Mainland Southeast Asia, and Maritime Southeast Asia
See also: Malay Archipelago and Nanyang (region)

This subregion covers the geographical regions of Mainland Southeast Asia and Maritime Southeast Asia, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:

Southern Asia

Main article: South Asia
Further information: Indian subcontinent and Iranian Plateau

This subregion covers the geographical regions spanning over the Indian subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:

Western Asia

Main article: West Asia
Further information: Middle East, Near East, Palestine (region), and Syria (region)
See also: Greater Middle East and Middle East and North Africa

This subregion covers the geographical regions spanning over Anatolia, Arabia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and the South Caucasus, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:

Europe

Main article: Europe
Further information: Regions of Europe
See also: Central Europe and Old Europe and New Europe

Eastern Europe

Main article: Eastern Europe
Further information: Central and Eastern Europe and East-Central Europe
See also: North Asia

† Although Russia is a transcontinental country covering Northern Asia as well, for statistical convenience, Russia is assigned under Eastern Europe by the UNSD, including both European Russia and Asian Russia under a single subregion.

Northern Europe

Main article: Northern Europe
Further information: Baltic region, Fennoscandia, and Northwestern Europe
See also: Nordic countries and Scandinavia

Southern Europe

Main article: Southern Europe
Further information: Iberian Peninsula, Italy (geographical region), and Southeast Europe

Western Europe

Main article: Western Europe
See also: Western world

Oceania

Main article: Oceania
Further information: Near Oceania and Remote Oceania

Australia and New Zealand

Main article: Australasia
Further information: Down Under
See also: Western world

Melanesia

Main article: Melanesia
Further information: Island Melanesia
See also: East Melanesian Islands

Micronesia

Main article: Micronesia
Further information: Caroline Islands and Mariana Islands

Polynesia

Main article: Polynesia
Further information: Polynesian outlier and Polynesian Triangle
See also: Hawaiian Islands and Samoan Islands

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h British Overseas Territory
  2. ^ a b c Part of the Dutch Caribbean and a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands
  3. ^ A part of the Dutch Caribbean and a public body within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
  4. ^ a b c An overseas department and region of France.
  5. ^ A commonwealth and unincorporated territory of the United States.
  6. ^ a b c An overseas collectivity of France.
  7. ^ An unincorporated and organized territory of the United States
  8. ^ A dependency of Norway
  9. ^ A constituent country within the Danish Realm

References

  1. ^ UNSD: Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49) – Recent changes – Footnote 13
  2. ^ a b c "UNSD — Methodology". United Nations Statistics Division. Retrieved 2019-06-17.
  3. ^ United Nations Industrial Organisation p. 14
  4. ^ UNESCO, Europe and North America, Retrieved: 10 May 2016
  5. ^ Katrin Elborgh-Woytek; Monique Newiak; Kalpana Kochhar; Stefania Fabrizio; Kangni Kpodar; Philippe Wingender; Benedict J. Clements; Gerd Schwartz (20 September 2013). Women, Work, and the Economy:Macroeconomic Gains from Gender Equity. International Monetary Fund. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-4843-9529-5. Country groups are based on UN geoscheme and World Bank regional classification
  6. ^ ICANN Geographic Regions
  7. ^ ICANN Geographical Regions, Final Report by the ccNSO Regions Working Group, For Submission to the ICANN Board, 24 September 2007
  8. ^ "World Bank Country and Lending Groups", the World Bank
  9. ^ "Territory Containment (UN M.49)". unicode-org.github.io.
  10. ^ "Geographical diversification and Solvency II: A proposal by Lloyd's".
  11. ^ "Countries in APRICOT's Region".
  12. ^ Website Usability in Asia 'from Within': An Overview of a Decade of Literature International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 29, issue 4 (2013), pp. 256–273.
  13. ^ Hodgkins, Paul; Arnold, L. Eugene; Shaw, Monica; Caci, Hervé; Kahle, Jennifer; Woods, Alisa G; Young, Susan (2012). "A Systematic Review of Global Publication Trends Regarding Long-Term Outcomes of ADHD". Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2: 84. doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00084. ISSN 1664-0640. PMC 3260478. PMID 22279437.
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