Country Midpoint Distance in km
| Quick info | |
|---|---|
| Data type | Numeric |
| Scale | Metric |
| Value labels | |
| Technical name | geo_mid_dist_km_eurogeographics |
| Category | Geography |
| Label | Country Midpoint Distance |
| Related indicators | |
This indicator expresses the distance between the midpoints of two countries. The midpoints are based off shapefile datasets provided by Eurogeographics and downloaded from Eurostat (GISCO 1:20 Million version; Spatial Reference: WGS1984). The midpoint coordinates and distances were calculated using ArcGIS following the same pattern as Capital Distance in km calculation. The country shapefile dataset by Eurogeographics is available for the following years: 2001, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2020. For the missing years, we checked for territorial changes in the Territorial Change Dataset (v6) provided by Correlates of War and applied the existing datasets with or without changes.
Coding rules
Changes to the source shapefile data applicable to all years
- Kosovo added to the 2010, 2013, 2016 and 2020 datasets.
- The territory of Serbia was adjusted for these years.
- Taiwan was added to all datasets.
Changes to the midpoint data by year
Calculation of Midpoint Coordinates
The "Feature to Point" Tool in ArcGIS was used ("Inside" option checked). For territories where the resulting point deviated strongly from the countries' centroid, the point was manually moved to the centroid ("Calculate Geometry" Tool). We didn't want to use the centroid for all countries because this would result in midpoints that would be located outside the countries' territory for island states and countries with multiple non-connected territories.
Manual changes were made for the following countries: Canada, Chile, China, Cook Islands, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark, Djibouti, Estonia, Finland, Gambia, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Jordan, Laos, Latvia, Malaysia, Maldives, Mozambique, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Tajikistan, Tuvalu, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Yemen
Distance Calculation The distances between the midpoints were calculated using the “Generate Near Table” tool.
Bibliographic info
Citation:
Related publications:
Misc
Project manager(s): Lara Eiser (A01), Michael Lischka (A01), Ivo Mossig (A01)
Data release:
Revisions:
Sources
- Correlates of War, Territorial Change dataset v6 [1]
- Tir, Jaroslav, Philip Schafer, Paul Diehl, and Gary Goertz. 1998. "Territorial Changes, 1816-1996: Procedures and Data "Conflict Management and Peace Science 16:89-97
