Talk:Country codes

Regions

Shall we list countries in alphabetical order by continents? Or further refer to regions like V-Dem (e.g. Central Africa, East/Horn of Africa etc.)

-> I think it would be good if the countries are listed alphabetically but the table has a column for regions and sub-regions to filter them. I would suggest to use the UN defintions for regions and sub-regions, see https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/

ND: Hm, not sure if the table gets too wide... Anyone else having a strong preference for including it?

FaB: I do not need it for this list, it does however make sense to have that as a variable in Wesis.

ND: Update on this topic: We are in the process of adding country groupings to WeSIS, but I still would not display them all here, as the table would get too wide (June 11, 2020)

Legacy list and December testing bug

ND: For the current testing, there is a "legacy" list in WeSIS that - unfortunately - does not recognize all "related entities"; we @A01 will fix it soon!

ND: It is fixed now (February 21, 2020)

Spelling Mistake in Bosnia and Herzegovina

I think there is a spelling mistake in one of the entries in the country table of Bosnia and Herzegovina (o instead of e). I cannot edit the page, would be great if someone who has access can correct it. Thanks!

ND: It is fixed now.

Code for Palestine

We suggest a code for Palestine: 667 Israel has 666, thats why we suggest this code

ND: The CoW code for Palestine is 665!

Code for Puerto Rico

We suggest a code for Puerto Rico: 43 Dominican Republic (regionally close) has 42

ND: The CoW code for Puerto Rico is 6!

FB: The Code is however not in the list in Wesispedia. Doesn't that give parsing errors?

ND: True. I will add it soon.

ND: It is fixed now.

Why ignore some countries

for example, we have data for North Vietnam during the split, why would we not incorporate this into Wesis? You have it listed as a related entry cow_code 817 there are other examples like this (eg., Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro)

ND: If there is a CoW code, you can upload it; in other words, 817 is valid for WeSIS!

Gran Colombia

It was a small empire including Ecuador, Panama and Venzuela <- these countries should be listed as 'related entities' no?

ND: But from what I can read of the CoW codebook this was prior to 1880, right? If so, it is missing as it is beyond the CRC's scope. If you, nevertheless want to upload data for it we should talk about adding it manually to the list of valid country-year observations. In this case just get in touch with us @A01.

East and West , North and South

Most of the data we have is radically different for East and West Germany. You have country codes for both (260 and 265), why not use them? Please let me upload data for both. We are throwing away both data and history by forcing Germany to be one code. Or please tell me how I am supposed to choose which data to upload. Should I upload data for East Germany for 1965 and have it coded as Germany (code number 355, i.e., West Germany)? This seems like a bad idea. Also if we ever go public with our data, this would really look not so good in my opinion.

ND: Of course you could use both - and should, as it was agreed upon to collect data as "disaggregated as possible". As 260 and 265 are valid CoW codes, you can upload data for both entities separately. In fact, because we rely on CoW, you can upload data for every entity that has a CoW code.

NB: Fixed, thank you. There is only one remaining issue I am encountering. It seems like "Republic of Vietnam" with country code 817 is not there, also in CoW, "Vietnam" should be 818, perhaps there is a mistake here? Otherwise I am able to upload all countries. Very nicely done!

ND: True. It has to do with the fact that the "related entities" were not covered in the initial list. We are working on fixing it!

ND: It is fixed now with the new version of WeSIS relying on the extendend entity list (June 11, 2020)

Missing values for related entities, such as "population over 500K"

Entities like Hong Kong only appear on the "related entity" column and therefore, the following values are not given for it: population over 500K, start-end, wiki URL

ND: This is related to the legacy list and we are working on updating and extending the list to have an entry for each entity on its own.

ND: It is fixed now with the new version of WeSIS relying on the extendend entity list (June 11, 2020)

Country names (for Wesis upload)

We (A04) discovered when trying to upload data to Wesis that also the country names (not only cow codes) seem to be standardized according to how the name is written in cow. For other spelling of country names, an error is returned in the upload if we interpreted it correctly. Is that correct? Do we need to standardize the spelling of the country names as well? Another possibility would be to just add the respective country name to the cow code during the upload, but this maybe is too prone to mistakes?

ND: This is correct, it checks both the numeric code and the CoW-standardized name to prevent errors (e.g. transposed digits in the code or typos in the country name). For some countries that actually changed their name, we will look into the possibility of having valid, alternative names. Until then, CoW names should be used as well.

Country-Code: Reunion

We (A05) have the first case of actually having data on a subnational unit. We want to have Reunion as an entity in WESIS. There is however no Cow-Code assigned to it, because it formally is a french department. We suggest to use 2201 (220 is France). This then needs to be added to the country-list becausde of validation, right? Who can do that?

ND: I'll keep it in mind, but for now we won't add it as it is a subnational unit and WeSIS (at least not now) is not prepared for subnational data. For such data one would need to define the relations to the federal state, define aggregation routines and rules for displaying the data. In short: for the database it is not just "simply" a new entity. Keep the data of course, maybe WeSIS will be extended and/or you could still publish the more encompassing data in a repository.

Codes for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales

We propose to include Country Codes for Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales. Sorry if we did not find it beforehand but we actually looked in most COW datsets and most importantly it is not in the Wesispedia list. I understand that it will give parsing errors if it is not included. We suggest to use the following codes based on the knowledge that United Kingdom = 200 and Ireland = 205: Scotland = 201, Wales: 202, Northern Ireland = 203. Please give us Feedback on that and then the Entity list in wesispedia should be uploaded.

ND: Similar to the Reunion issue. In addition: those entities do neither have a CoW code nor an ISO code on their own; they only have subcodes such as GB-EAW or GB-SCT. Thus, we won't add it for now, but keep the data!

Code for Cook Islands

The code for Cook Islands is missing either in COW and in our list. Since they are recognised by and/or member of several UN Organisations, I suggest to add them although they have less than 500000 inhabitants.

ND: True. The CoW code is 925. I will add it to the list but it may take a while until the validation will recognize this new entity.

ND: It is fixed now in WeSIS and here, so it should be recognized (haven't tested it though) (June 16, 2020).

Country name East Timor

The country name for East Timor seems to be pretty outdated. Wiki explains that in 2002 the country name changed into Timor-Leste: "On 27 September 2002, East Timor was renamed to Timor-Leste, using the Portuguese language, and was admitted as a member state by the UN. [...] The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) official short form in English and all other languages is Timor-Leste (codes: TLS & TL), which has been adopted by the United Nations,[21] the European Union,[22] and the national standards organisations of France (AFNOR), the United States (ANSI),[23] United Kingdom (BSI), Germany (DIN), and Sweden (SIS), all diplomatic missions to the country by protocol and the CIA World Factbook.[24]" I've seen that the actual country name is renowned under the alt names category but would nevertheless suggest to use the up-to-date country name or politely insist on extending WeSIS' future capacity to use alternative country name schemes for the display of country-specific results.

ND: I'll check what the status is; we @A01 already looked into the topic of using alternative names (as well), but we (aka Core Group?!) need to discuss for which "step" we would like to allow alternative names (for selecting data in WeSIS, even for downloading (what about time-series then?), already while uploading (also time-sensitive?!). I assume, for some steps it is easy to implement, others are probably much more difficult... (August 18, 2020)

Country name Bolivia

Similar issue as with East Timor. The new official naming of Bolivia is the Plurinational State of Bolivia (from UN databases you usually get the output "Bolivia, Plurinational State of". We should be able somehow to recognize and use the up-to-date country names.

ND: cf. comment on East Timor

Country name Swaziland/Eswatini

Swaziland is the outdated name for Eswatini: "On 19 April 2018, King Mswati III announced that the Kingdom of Swaziland had renamed itself the Kingdom of Eswatini, reflecting the extant Swazi name for the state eSwatini, to mark the 50th anniversary of Swazi independence. The new name, Eswatini, means "land of the Swazis" in the Swazi language and was partially intended to prevent confusion with the similarly named Switzerland.[10][11]"(source is also the wikipage) Consider also in this case to use the up-to-date countryname not only as "altname"?

ND: cf. comment on East Timor

Country name Macedonia

New official name is North Macedonia. Wiki: "The vote to amend the constitution and change the name of the country passed on 11 January 2019 in favour of the amendment.[35] The amendment entered into force on 12 February, following the ratification of the Prespa agreement and the Protocol on the Accession of North Macedonia to NATO by the Greek Parliament.[36]"

ND: cf. comment on East Timor