Thanks a lot to all of you who compiled these excellent ready to use GIS data! It helps me lot.
My question:
Where can I find an explanatory overview of the abbreviations used in the attribute tables for all the different thematic codes. In the latest updates / release notes it has been mentioned that in the 50m and 110 m Admin 0 a link out to the Correlates of War database is given. I couldn’t find it.
It would also be helpful to know to which year the data refers to (GDP, population…)
Best,
Lars
The website Statoids has a good overview of country code systems:
http://www.statoids.com/wab.html
The following 4 columns are unique to the Natural Earth administrative-0 coding system, but somewhat follow the ISO 3 digit alpha codes: sov_a3, adm_a3, gu_a3, su_a3
The “map_color” column derives from a US State Department political world map where no neighboring country has the same color, but all territories of a sovereign country share the same color.
The columns COG to Pays_region are from the French statistical authority.
For the cShapes (Correlates of War) link column, use “gw_id” which conforms to Gleditsch and Ward’s modified system. The website with the GIS shapefiles and further info: http://nils.weidmann.ws/projects/cshapes
Also, since some countries include a “The” beginning their name, the “SortName” provides a way of listing ignoring that prefix.
The people (population) and gdp_usd (gross domestic product, United States dollars) columns are mostly from 2009 and from World Bank, UN, etc. But where those bodies do not parse administrative countries using the same formula as Natural Earth, they have been supplemented with other sources. These columns are provided to give rough estimate of these values to determine relative rankings between countries, not to be an authoritative source for a particular country.
Hi Nathaniel,
Thanks a lot for the prompt reply. Has been really helpful. The link to Nils Weidmann is worth one’s weight in Gold.
Best,
Lars
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