# United Nations geoscheme

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. It was devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) based on the M49 coding classification. 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".

## Usage

The UNSD geoscheme was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to continents. 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 is the only continental region which 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. This "statistical" definition also differs from United Nations Regional Groups.

### Alternative groupings

Other alternative groupings include the World Bank regional classification, CIA World Factbook regions and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Geographic Regions.

## Africa
### Northern Africa

* Algeria
* Egypt
* Libya
* Morocco
* Sudan
* Tunisia
* Western Sahara

### Sub-Saharan Africa
#### Eastern Africa

* British Indian Ocean Territory
* Burundi
* Comoros
* Djibouti
* Eritrea
* Ethiopia
* French Southern Territories
* Kenya
* Madagascar
* Malawi
* Mauritius
* Mayotte
* Mozambique
* Réunion
* Rwanda
* Seychelles
* Somalia
* South Sudan
* Uganda
* United Republic of Tanzania
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe

#### Middle Africa

* Angola
* Cameroon
* Central African Republic
* Chad
* Congo
* Democratic Republic of the Congo
* Equatorial Guinea
* Gabon
* Sao Tome and Principe

#### Southern Africa

* Botswana
* Eswatini
* Lesotho
* Namibia
* South Africa

#### Western Africa

* Benin
* Burkina Faso
* Cabo Verde
* Côte d'Ivoire
* Gambia
* Ghana
* Guinea
* Guinea-Bissau
* Liberia
* Mali
* Mauritania
* Niger
* Nigeria
* Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
** Saint Helena
** Ascension Island
** Tristan da Cunha
* Senegal
* Sierra Leone
* Togo

## Americas
### Latin America and the Caribbean
#### Caribbean

* Anguilla
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Aruba
* Bahamas
* Barbados
* Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
** Bonaire
** Sint Eustatius
** Saba
* British Virgin Islands
* Cayman Islands
* Cuba
* Curaçao
* Dominica
* Dominican Republic
* Grenada
* Guadeloupe
* Haiti
* Jamaica
* Martinique
* Montserrat
* Puerto Rico
* Saint Barthélemy
* Saint Kitts and Nevis
* Saint Lucia
* Saint Martin (French part)
* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Turks and Caicos Islands
* United States Virgin Islands

#### Central America

* Belize
* Costa Rica
* El Salvador
* Guatemala
* Honduras
* Mexico
* Nicaragua
* Panama

#### South America

* Argentina
* Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
* Bouvet Island
* Brazil
* Chile
* Colombia
* Ecuador
* Falkland Islands
* French Guiana
* Guyana
* Paraguay
* Peru
* South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
* Suriname
* Uruguay
* Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)

### Northern America

* Bermuda
* Canada
* Greenland
* Saint Pierre and Miquelon
* United States

## Asia
### Central Asia

* Kazakhstan
* Kyrgyzstan
* Tajikistan
* Turkmenistan
* Uzbekistan

### Eastern Asia

* China
* China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
* China, Macao Special Administrative Region
* Democratic People's Republic of Korea
* Japan
* Mongolia
* Republic of Korea

#### 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.
* The Unicode CLDR's "Territory Containment (UN M.49)" includes Taiwan in its presentation of the UN M.49.
* The public domain map data set Natural Earth has metadata in the fields named "region_un" and "subregion" for Taiwan.
* The regional split recommended by Lloyd's of London for Eastern Asia (UN statistical divisions of Eastern Asia) contains Taiwan.
* Based on the United Nations statistical divisions, the APRICOT (conference) includes Taiwan in East Asia.
* 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.
* Taiwan is also included in the UN Geoscheme of Eastern Asia in one systematic review on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

### Northern Asia

This 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 Indochinese Peninsula and Malay Archipelago, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:
* Brunei Darussalam
* Cambodia
* Indonesia
* Lao People's Democratic Republic
* Malaysia
* Myanmar
* Philippines
* Singapore
* Thailand
* Timor-Leste
* Viet Nam

### Southern Asia

This subregion covers the geographical regions spanning from the Iranian Plateau till the Indian subcontinent, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:
* Afghanistan
* Bangladesh
* Bhutan
* India
* Iran (Islamic Republic of)
* Maldives
* Nepal
* Pakistan
* Sri Lanka

### Western Asia

This subregion covers the geographical regions spanning from Anatolia, Caucasus, Levant, Mesopotamia till the Arabian Peninsula, covering the following geopolitical entities as a whole:
* Armenia
* Azerbaijan
* Bahrain
* Cyprus
* Georgia
* Iraq
* Israel
* Jordan
* Kuwait
* Lebanon
* Oman
* Qatar
* Saudi Arabia
* State of Palestine
* Syrian Arab Republic
* Türkiye
* United Arab Emirates
* Yemen

## Europe
### Eastern Europe

* Belarus
* Bulgaria
* Czechia
* Hungary
* Poland
* Republic of Moldova
* Romania
* Russian Federation$^†$
* Slovakia
* Ukraine
$^†$ Although Russia is a transcontinental country covering Northern Asia as well, for statistical convenience, Russia is assigned under Eastern Europe by UNSD, including both European Russia and Siberian Russia under a single subregion.

### Northern Europe

* Åland Islands
* Denmark
* Estonia
* Faroe Islands
* Finland
* Iceland
* Ireland
* Isle of Man
* Latvia
* Lithuania
* Norway
* Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands
* Sweden
* United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

#### Channel Islands

* Guernsey
* Jersey
* Sark

### Southern Europe

* Albania
* Andorra
* Bosnia and Herzegovina
* Croatia
* Gibraltar
* Greece
* Holy See
* Italy
* Malta
* Montenegro
* North Macedonia
* Portugal
* San Marino
* Serbia
* Slovenia
* Spain

### Western Europe

* Austria
* Belgium
* France
* Germany
* Liechtenstein
* Luxembourg
* Monaco
* Netherlands
* Switzerland

## Oceania
### Australia and New Zealand

* Australia
* New Zealand
* Norfolk Island

### Melanesia

* Fiji
* New Caledonia
* Papua New Guinea
* Solomon Islands
* Vanuatu

### Micronesia

* Guam
* Kiribati
* Marshall Islands
* Micronesia (Federated States of)
* Nauru
* Northern Mariana Islands
* Palau

### Polynesia

* American Samoa
* Cook Islands
* French Polynesia
* Niue
* Pitcairn
* Samoa
* Tokelau
* Tonga
* Tuvalu
* Wallis and Futuna Islands

## Maps

* UN geoscheme for Africa Eastern Africa Middle Africa Northern Africa Southern Africa Western Africa
* UN geoscheme for the Americas Caribbean Central America Northern America South America
* UN geoscheme for Asia Central Asia Eastern Asia South-eastern Asia Southern Asia Western Asia
* UN geoscheme for Europe Eastern Europe Northern Europe Southern Europe Western Europe
* UN geoscheme for Oceania Australia and New Zealand Melanesia Micronesia Polynesia