The Country Similarity Index attempts to quantify how similar countries are to each other relative to other countries. The index is a statistically-based way to measure this. It weighs equally five major aspects of countries: their demographics, culture, politics, infrastructure, and geography. The methodology is exactly the same for each country.
The data from the Country Similarity Index was used to cluster countries into different regions. Some unique countries, like Bhutan, North Korea, and Israel, are very difficult to group with other countries. Therefore, it was necessary to make the largest regions still have a great deal of variation within them. This resulted in 9 distinct macro-regions:
- The North & Australasia
- Central & South America
- Middle East & North Africa
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Central Asia
- South Asia
- East Asia
- Southeast Asia
- South Pacific
However, these macro-regions still have very significant differences within them. Countries as different as Mongolia and Turkey are still grouped together. To account for this, the 9 macro-regions were further divided into 27 sub-regions. Some individual countries are their own “region” because they have many traits that make them especially unique.
Most countries neatly fit into one of these regions. However, there are a few countries that could be categorized into two different sub-regions. The countries that have characteristics of two different regions, like Zimbabwe, are shaded with the colors of both regions. The countries in each region and their individual pages are as follows:
The North & Australasia
The Anglo World (1-A)
United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Ireland
The European Region (1-B)
Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Iceland, Romania, Moldova, Albania
The North Eurasia Region (1-C)
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia
Central & South America
The Caribbean Region (2-A)
Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas, Guyana, Suriname, Belize
The Latin American Region (2-B)
Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Dominican Rep., Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, Cuba, Brazil
Cape Verde (2-C)
Mauritius (2-D)
Middle East & North Africa
The Arab World (3-A)
Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Yemen
Israel (3-B)
The Nastaliq Region (3-C)
Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan
Sub-Saharan Africa
The Sahel Region (4-A)
Niger, Mali, Chad, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, Mauritania
The Tropical Africa Region (4-B)
Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, D.R. Congo, Cameroon, Central African Rep., Rep. Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mozambique, Angola, Madagascar, South Sudan
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The Southern Africa Region (4-C)
South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini
The Ethiopic Africa Region (4-D)
Ethiopia, Eritrea
South Asia
The Hindu World (5-A)
India, Nepal
Bhutan (5-B)
Bangladesh (5-C)
Sri Lanka (5-D)
Central Asia
The Central Asian Region (6-A)
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Turkey , Azerbaijan, Tajikistan
Mongolia (6-B)
East Asia
The Chinese Region (7-A)
China, Taiwan
The North Pacific Region (7-B)
Japan, South Korea
North Korea (7-C)
Southeast Asia
The Mainland Southeast Asia Region (8-A)
Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam
Singapore (8-B)
The Southeast Asia Island Region (8-C)
Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines
South Pacific
The South Pacific Region (9-A)
Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Samoa
East Timor (9-B)
