Movatterモバイル変換

Buy data    Donate

Updates:

This section briefly describes the events since early 1999 that have affected or will affect the information in therest of the article. The most recent events are usually listed first.

Country overview:

This section of each country article provides information about the country, rather than its subdivisions. It startswith a short table giving the country's short-form English name, ISO and FIPS/GEC country codes, language(s), majoritytime zone if there is one, and capital. Following that is a paragraph or two describing the major geopoliticalchanges the country has undergone since 1900, if any.

ISO is the symbol of the International Organization for Standardization. (It was not chosen as an acronym; rather,iso- is the Greek prefix for "equal".) ISO 3166-1 is an international standard entitled "Code for therepresentation of names of countries." It provides a list of countries, a two-letter code for each country, and otherthings of less significance. It was first issued in 1974, and is widely used. I have provided a description of allthechanges to ISO country codes since 1974, and someadvicefor software designers about using the codes.

The "Geopolitical Entities and Codes (GEC) Standard", first published in 2010-04, is the latest version of aline of U.S. governmentstandards going back to 1970. Its immediate predecessor was FIPSPUB 10-4. FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards. There are numerous FIPS standards. FIPS PUB 10-4was titled "Countries, dependencies, areas of special sovereignty, and their principal administrative divisions." Itprovided two-letter codes for the countries of the world, and four-character codes for primary administrativedivisions. It was withdrawn on 2008-09-02. I have written ahistory of changes to thisstandard. Renaming the code at each of the hundreds of mentions will take some time, so I will gradually phase overfrom FIPS to GEC, including some retroactive renaming. When changes have occurred, I may have to talk about updates toGEC that were published in a FIPS document.

Languages listed are usually the official language(s) of the country, with preference given to the languages in whichI am reporting subdivision names. If the language has a two-letter code according toISO standard 639-2, itis shown in parentheses. (The symbol "" represents a link to a different website.)

Time zones are shown as offsets from UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) in hours or hours and minutes (hh:mm). Positiveoffsets represent places east of Greenwich where the time is later than UTC, and negative offsets, west. The symboltilde (~) is used to indicate places where daylight saving time is observed. In countries with more than one timezone, there are usually more details in thePrimary subdivisions table. For more information abouttime zones in general, see theBasic Time Zone Concepts page.

Our primary education may lead us to believe that the question "What is the capital of X?" always has a single rightanswer. As with so many other fields of knowledge, deeper study reveals a more complex situation. There are variousissues that occasionally need to be dealt with in determining the capital of a geographical administrative unit.

1. Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines capital, in the relevant sense, as "a city serving as a seat ofgovernment". You would therefore expect to look for the physical location of the country's governing bodies, and findthem in the capital. But the constitution of the Netherlands says that Amsterdam is the capital, although all of thenational executive, legislative, and judicial functions are headquartered in The Hague.

2. Given the definition of capital, you might ask, "What if the organs of government are located in severalseparate places?" This is notably the case with South Africa, whose legislative branch is in Cape Town, executive inPretoria (Tshwane), and judicial in Bloemfontein.

3. When you fill out a typical order form, you are asked for a "City", implying that everyone can give anunequivocal answer to "What is the name of the city you live in?" There is no logical necessity for this to be true.Some people live in the wilderness. Some people live in the vague area between two neighboring unincorporated places.Most national capitals are in incorporated places. But there is still a problem. The incorporated place may not be acity. The premise of the Statoids website is that almost all countries are completely subdivided into legally definednamed geographic areas of various sorts, many of these subdivisions are further subdivided, and so on. In some cases,one of the levels of subdivision is the city or some near-equivalent (commune, municipality). But it is logicallypossible that a country's government bodies are located in a tertiary subdivision, which is in a larger secondarydivision, which is in a still larger primary division, and none of them are called "city". Which level, then, shouldbe designated the capital? Or, for that matter, what if the capital buildings are all concentrated in a small sectionof the administrative subdivision that has its own place name? American Samoa, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands, andSouth Africa's executive capital present problems of this nature.

4. There is also the issue of disputed names, as with almost any kind of toponym. My policy in all such casesis to choose the name that I think is most widely accepted at the present moment. I add notes where appropriate toacknowledge the controversy. Lexicographers have the same problem, and in modern times typically adopt the samesolution. Their slogan is "descriptive, not prescriptive".

Other names of country:

In this section, I try to give the short-form country name in each of thirteen languages: Danish, Dutch, Finnish,French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish (English is given intheCountry overview section). When convenient, I show the name in other languages used in or nearthe country (transliterated, if necessary, into the Roman alphabet). Also listed are some versions of the formal, orlong-form, name; outdated or obsolete names; accepted variant names; and nicknames, all with an identifying tag inparentheses. If only a formal name is given, the short-form name is usually the formal name minus the generic term(Republic, Principality, etc.) Norwegian has two standard printed versions, Bokmål and Nynorsk; where they differ,both names are given, along with tags. For French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, I also try to providethe gender and number of nouns. These are the italicized letters immediately following the noun. The table belowis a key to these labels.

Since commas are used to separate names, when a comma is part of a name, the entire name is enclosed in quotes.

For languages other than those listed here, two other resources areWernerFröhlich's  andCelvinRuisdael's  websites.

The vernacular names of places - names expressed in the native language of the place - are often written in non-Romanscripts. To be used in English text, they must be rendered in the Roman alphabet, possibly with the aid of diacriticalmarks. (Scholarly papers may intermingle different character sets, but that would be extremely rare in a newspaper orgeneral-circulation magazine.) The rendering may be done by translation, transcription, or transliteration.

Translation converts according to meaning. For example, Egypt has a governorate named Al Bahr al Ahmar, which isArabic for "Red Sea". The term for a translated placename is 'exonym'. Exonyms don't have to be based on meaning.The vernacular (Italian) name of Venice is Venezia. Its exonyms include Venise (French), Venedig (German), Veneza(Portuguese), and Venecia (Spanish).

Transcription converts according to sound. "Paree" could be a transcription of Paris into English, because itrepresents an English speaker's best approximation to the sound of the French name.

Transliteration is a conversion from one script to another following a fixed set of rules. Transliteration systemsaim for a phonetic equivalent, as with transcription. For example, the Greek letter theta might always be converted tothe Roman letters 'th'. Mu would be converted to 'm', and pi to 'p'. But the Greek letters mu and pi, when foundconsecutively at the beginning of a word, might be converted to 'b' (since that combination is pronounced like 'b' inGreek). That is, the rules of conversion may not be one-to-one, but context-dependent. The context may even begrammatical (for example, a rule might apply only to adjectival endings), in which case conversion requires a knowledgeof the source language.

Since both transcription and transliteration aim at a phonetic rendition, they depend not just on the target script,but on the target language. This is why the Germans prefer to call the Russian emperor 'Zar', while English speakersuse 'tsar'. 'Khrouchtchev' is the French spelling of Khrushchev. For conversion from Cyrillic to Roman letters, thereare several different standard transliteration schemes, according to the rules of pronunciation in the target language.But even for a single source language and a single target language, there have often been a succession oftransliteration systems in vogue over the years.

Most people throughout the ages have not known more than a few hundred placenames outside of their own country. As aresult, most languages have fewer than a thousand exonyms. The exonyms listed on this website are mainly foridentification. Translators should use them with caution. The United Nations Conference on the Standardization ofGeographical Names recommends that exonyms be phased out. The local name should be used if it's in the right script;otherwise, a transliteration. However, no one expects Misr to replace Egypt anytime soon.

Origin of name:

Placename etymologies are often controversial. I have consulted reliable reference works for the etymologies provided,but many details and alternate hypotheses have been omitted. The value of the name origins is that they provide mentalhooks to help in the retention of information; also, in some cases, they hint at geographical relationships. However,if completeness and accuracy are essential, you should consult the technical literature.

Primary subdivisions:

This section is the meat of the site. It always presents a table with one row for each primary administrativesubdivision of the country. For a few small countries, where no administrative divisions exist or meet my criteria forinclusion, the table will only have one row representing the country as a whole. The subdivisions listed should beexclusive and exhaustive: they don't overlap, but among them they cover the entire territory.

The columns of the table vary from country to country, depending on what information is applicable. The first columnalways shows the English names of the subdivisions. It is followed by columns with codes or abbreviations for thesubdivisions, their populations, their areas in square kilometers and square miles, their capitals, and other data asappropriate. In some countries the capital always has the same name as its subdivision; in those cases, the capitalcolumn is omitted, and a note appears in the captions field (gray background). I consistently refer to "capitals", butin some countries they have different names, such as headquarters or chief towns.

When there are widely-used, spontaneously-occurring abbreviations for a country's subdivisions, they are usually shownin a column headed "Conv" (for conventional). Most of the subdivision codes I show, however, were created by someagency for data processing purposes. These include HASC codes, ISO codes, GEC codes, NUTS codes in Europe, NUTE codesin the Andean countries, and codes created by the country's census authority. Postal codes, telephone area codes, andlicense plate region codes might also fall in this category.

HASC stands forHierarchical administrative subdivision codes. I created them for my work,because I was dissatisfied with the other code systems available. Unlike ISO 3166-2 codes, they are uniform in format.Unlike GEC codes, they are somewhat mnemonic: the subdivision codes are reminiscent of the subdivision name as far aspossible. Unlike any other set of subdivision codes available, they extend down to secondary administrativesubdivisions (e.g. counties in the United States). They are kept more current than ISO or GEC codes, because I don'tgo through a bureaucracy before I make an update.

The ISO codes that represent primary subdivisions of countries come from the international standard ISO 3166-2. ISOrealized that the two-letter ISO 3166-1 country codes (seeabove) could helpfully be extended. Apreliminary draft of the standard for subdivisions, ISO/DIS 3166-2, was released in 1996. It had a few errors, suchas duplicate codes. The official standard came out in late 1998. In this standard, each subdivision has a code thatstarts out with the two-letter ISO code for the country, followed by a hyphen, followed by one to three letters ordigits. The first two letters and the hyphen may be omitted if the context makes it clear what country is meant.Wherever possible, the subdivision codes were derived from pre-existing country-specific code sets. For example, inthe United States, ISO 3166-2 uses the two-letter state abbreviations that were created in 1963 by the United StatesPost Office Department.

GEC codes are four-character codes from Geopolitical Entities and Codes, the successor to Federal InformationProcessing Standard 10-4 (seeabove). The first two characters are the two-letter GEC countrycode. The next two characters are usually digits, but letters may be used when the digits run out. GEC gets its listsof subdivisions from theCIA WorldFactbook , or from the same source at least.

Eurostat, a statistics agency of the European Union, has defined a hierarchical subdivision of the countries of thatUnion. The code is called NUTS, for Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques (Nomenclature of TerritorialUnits for Statistics). Its purpose is to divide the EU into entities which are statistically comparable to oneanother, despite the widely different sizes and structures of the individual countries. The highest-level subdivisionis the country. Each country is defined by a two-letter code, the same as the ISO code (except for the UnitedKingdom). In most countries, an alphanumeric third character creates a NUTS 1 code, usually an unofficial groupingof subdivisions. Appending a fourth character makes a NUTS 2 code, which often represents an actual administrativesubdivision of a country. The standard appends more characters to generate NUTS 3, NUTS 4, and NUTS 5 codes. Thesecodes represent successively smaller geographical units, always based on the actual administrative divisions of thecountry. (In 2005, the NUTS 4 and NUTS 5 codes were redesignated LAU (Local Administrative Units) level 1 and 2codes.)

NUTE is a similar scheme used by five countries in western South America. It stands for Nomenclatura de las UnidadesTerritoriales Estadísticas de la Comunidad Andina. NUTE codes have five hierarchical levels, all numeric. The firstdigit represents one of the five Andean countries. The first three digits represent a region of a country, generallya group of primary subdivisions. The first five digits represent a primary subdivision, the first eight digits asecondary subdivision, and all eleven digits represent a lowest-level division.

Populations are taken from the country's census reports, wherever possible. Sometimes I use preliminary figures(identified as such in the table captions) until the final figures are available. It is generally acknowledged thatall censuses have an undercount, since it's very unlikely that the enumerators will track down every person in thecountry. Some countries attempt to compensate for the undercount by making a statistical adjustment. Other countriesbase their population statistics on registries. In principle, each commune keeps complete track of the births, deaths,immigrations, and emigrations that affect the number of people residing there. Another variable factor is whether thecensus attempts to measure de facto or de jure population. If you have a primary residence in state A, but you arevisiting in state B on the census date, you are in the de facto population of state B but the de jure population ofstate A. Some day, if I have a lot of time to spare, I may try to identify how the population figures I give weremeasured.

Note that official population estimates, especially for less developed countries, are almost always inflated.

In most cases, to get area figures, I find the most precise areas I can (usually given in km.² in the source),convert them to mi.², and then round both of those quantities to the nearest whole number. If my source givesrounded numbers (say, hundreds of km.²), I round the mi.² to a similar degree. Some sources give landarea only, while others include water area, and most don't specify which it is. Given the choice, I usually preferland area.

If the sum of the populations of all the statoids in a given country is different from the total given on the bottomline of the table, the total probably includes special cases (nomads, servicemen stationed abroad, primitive peoples,etc.) that aren't listed under any statoid. The figure on the bottom line should be considered a more accurate countof the entire country.

Sometimes I give proleptic populations. Prolepsis is "the representation or assumption of a future act or developmentas if presently existing or accomplished" (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary). When a census is taken in year y, andthe subdivisions of the country are changed in year y+5, it may be of interest for comparison purposes to know what thepopulations of the new subdivisions would have been if they had been in force in year y.

Postal codes:

Some postal code systems make no attempt to correlate codes with political boundaries. Even when the system isdesigned that way, there may be a few addresses that are served by post offices in an adjacent statoid, and thereforedeviate from the pattern. Sometimes postal codes match statoids initially, but the administrative borders change andthe postal codes don't. Therefore, any list of postal code ranges for a given statoid should be taken as anapproximation.

Territorial extent:

This section contains information such as which islands belong to which subdivision (not always identifiable on a map),what points are on the boundaries of four or more subdivisions at once, and what subdivisions have enclaves.

When part of one country is disconnected from the rest, so that there is no way to travel from that part to the mainpart without passing through another country, the smaller part is called an exclave of the country to which it belongs.When a country, or part of a country, is completely surrounded by another country, it is called an enclave. Enclavesand exclaves are described under the country owning the territory, not the country that surrounds it. For example, tofind Campione d'Italia, a small part of Italy which is surrounded by Swiss territory, look under Italy, notSwitzerland.

The term "exclave" presupposes that you can tell which section is the "mainland" and which is the "island". Usuallyone section of the country is much larger, and the other one is considered the exclave. If the pieces are similar insize, it is simplest to call them all enclaves.

Change history:

I have tried to give complete histories of the changes in every country since 1900. Sometimes I haven't been able tofind the required information, especially for former colonies during their colonial periods. On the other hand, I'vebeen able to provide reliable information for a few countries going back as far as 1776.

All dates are written in the form yyyy-mm-dd (if known; alternatively, yyyy-mm or yyyy). There are several advantagesto this format. It is logical: like ordinary decimal notation, it puts the most significant digits first. A columnof dates in this format can easily be checked for chronological order. Also, this format conforms to the internationalstandard ISO 8601. It avoids the ambiguity in a notation like 05-01-2005, which Europeans would interpret as January 5while Americans would read May 1.

A date preceded by a tilde (e.g. ~1985-04) is approximate. That instance would probably mean April, 1985 plus or minusthree months.

There may be several dates associated with a change in subdivisions. The law enacting the change may be passed on onedate; it may be published in the official gazette a week later; it may have an effective date two months later; and thelegislature of the new division may have its first meeting the following year. Reference books don't always clarifywhich of these events happened on a particular date. If I have the choice, I prefer to give the effective date of thelaw that makes the change.

The changes listed in the change history section are of several types. The official names of subdivisions may change.Two or more subdivisions may merge. (If the two old subdivisions were named A and B, and the single new subdivision isnamed A, I usually describe it as "B merged with A".) A subdivision may be split into several smaller ones. There maybe a significant transfer of territory from one subdivision to its neighbor. (Minor transfers, of areas as small as afew hectares or perhaps a single commune, are very common and are usually not mentioned.) The country as a whole maygain or lose territory, or may reorganize itself in such a way that the new set of subdivisions has little or norelationship to the old set. The capital of a subdivision, or of the country, may move from one city to another, orchange its name. The goal of the change history section is to list all changes of these types. Often the onlyinformation I can find about such changes is a pair of maps, one from before and the other from after the change. Inthat case, I give an approximate date about halfway between the dates of the two maps.

Other names of subdivisions:

The information here is similar toOther names of country, but the organization is different. Eachentry begins with the name of a subdivision, as shown in the main table (Primary subdivisionssection), followed by a colon (:). Next come one or more groups of alternate names, separated by semi-colons (;).Each group consists of one or more names, separated by commas, and one or more tags, in parentheses. The tagsdescribe the usage of the names in that group.

Sources:

See also theBibliography. The lists of sources, when given, are not necessarily complete. Ialso consulted a long list of general reference works, including world atlases, almanacs, and encyclopedias. Manyinternet sources only served to confirm a fact that I had found elsewhere. Often, sources used for secondary divisionsare listed on the same country's primary subdivisions page.

Acknowledgments:

Attribution given to collaborators for their updates and corrections.