United Nations geoscheme

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22 geographical subregions as defined by the UNSD. Antarctica is not part of the system, as it applies to member states of the United Nations. United Nations geographical subregions.png
22 geographical subregions as defined by the UNSD. Antarctica is not part of the system, as it applies to member states of the United Nations.

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]

Contents

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

Northern Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Eastern Africa

Middle Africa

Southern Africa

Western Africa

Americas

Latin America and the Caribbean

Caribbean

Central America

South America

Northern America

Asia

Central Asia

Eastern Asia

Note on Taiwan

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

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

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

Southern Asia

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

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

Eastern Europe

† 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

Southern Europe

Western Europe

Oceania

Australia and New Zealand

Melanesia

Micronesia

Polynesia

See also

Notes

References

  1. ↑ UNSD: Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49) – Recent changes – Footnote 13
  2. 1 2 3 "UNSD — Methodology". United Nations Statistics Division. Retrieved 17 June 2019.
  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)". www.unicode.org. Unicode Consortium . Retrieved 25 August 2025.
  10. ↑ "Geographical diversification and Solvency II: A proposal by Lloyd's".
  11. ↑ "Countries in APRICOT's Region". Archived from the original on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 19 March 2025.
  12. ↑ Website Usability in Asia 'from Within': An Overview of a Decade of Literature Archived 2014-04-13 at the Wayback Machine 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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