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
Please see this article, which compares these groupings to other regional maps created by geographers.
It must be noted that these macro-regions still have very significant differences within them. Countries as different as Russia and Australia are still grouped together. Please note that simply using the hierarchical clustering does not tell the full story, since some countries can have nearly equal attributes of two different regions. This is especially true for Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Mauritania. Further analysis of the data requires comparing each country’s average to the resulting regions and creating a map of linkages between similar states to create a more refined map.
The countries in each region and their individual pages are as follows:
The North and Australasia
Anglo World
– United States, Canada
– Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Ireland
Europe
– Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Slovakia, Croatia,
Bosnia & Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro
– Germany, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland,
Italy, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg
– Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway
– Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
– Greece, Cyprus
– Iceland, Greenland
– Romania, Moldova
– Albania
North Eurasia
– Russia, Ukraine, Belarus
– Georgia
– Armenia
Central & South America
2-A) – Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas
– Guyana, Suriname
– Belize
2-B) – Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Guatemala, Ecuador, Dominican Rep.,
Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Puerto Rico
– Argentina, Chile, Uruguay
– Bolivia, Paraguay
– Cuba
– Brazil
– French Guiana
2-C) – Cape Verde
2-D) – Mauritius, Reunion
Middle East & North Africa
3-A) – Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain
– Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Libya, Palestine
Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia
– Lebanon
3-B) – Israel
3-C) – Iran
– Afghanistan
– Pakistan
Sub-Saharan Africa
4-A) – Niger, Mali, Chad
– Somalia, Djibouti
– Sudan, Mauritania
– Yemen
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
– Haiti
– South Sudan
4-C) – South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini
4-D) – Ethiopia, Eritrea
South Asia
5-A) – India
– Nepal
5-B) – Bhutan
5-C) – Bangladesh
5-D) – Sri Lanka
Central Asia
6-A) – Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan
– Turkey, Azerbaijan
– Tajikistan
6-B) – Mongolia
East Asia
7-A) – China
– Taiwan
7-B) – Japan
– South Korea
7-C) – North Korea
Southeast Asia
8-A) – Cambodia, Laos
– Myanmar
– Thailand
– Vietnam
8-B) – Singapore
8-C) – Malaysia, Brunei
– Indonesia
– Philippines
South Pacific
9-A) – Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia
– Samoa, French Polynesia
– Fiji
9-B) – East Timor
It is hoped that this study has created a more rigorous and logical world regional map than any previously created. More information on the similarities of each region to follow in later articles.
Here is the hierarchical clustering dendrogram, used to create the map:
A larger, high resolution version of the world regions map:
Do you agree with these regions of the world?
Please leave any thoughts in the comments section.
