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. 20% of the index is based on geography. 10% of a country’s geography score (2% of the overall Country Similarity Index score) is allocated for the country’s location. The following two factors were included:
Time Zone
The time is different depending on which country you are in. It is mostly based on their longitude. While in one country it may be the afternoon, it is the middle of the night in another country. Countries were categorized into different time zones. If a country has more than one time zone, an average of the time zones was used.
The CIA Factbook was the source of the information:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/attachments/docs/original/standard_time_zones_of_the_world.pdf?1574343292
Latitude
Difference in latitude can have a huge effect on the seasons in a country. While in the Northern Hemisphere it is winter in December, January, and February, it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere. Furthermore, countries near the equator do not have as extreme temperature differences, although there may be large differences in rainfall and humidity. The centroid of the country was used to determine its latitude (discounting territories not connected to their main landmass).
The CIA Factbook was the source of the information:
https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/fields/geographic-coordinates
Countries were categorized into the following latitudes:
0-5, 6-11, 12-17, 18-23, 24-34, 35-45, 46-56, 57-67
(-)0-5, (-)6-11, (-)12-17, (-)18-23, (-)24-34, (-)35-45, (-)46-56, (-)57-67
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