The United Nations geoscheme is a system which divides 249 countries and territories in the world into six regional, 17 subregional, and nine intermediate regional groups. 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 schema was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to continents. Within each region, smaller geographical sub-regions and sometimes intermediate regions contain countries. Countries are also grouped nongeographically into selected economic and other sets. Antarctica is the only geographical region which does not comprise any sub-regions 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 ''The World Factbook'', also known as the ''CIA World Factbook'', is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) with almanac-style information about the countries of the world. The official print version is available ...

regions and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers Geographic Regions.ICANN Geographical Regions, Final Report by the ccNSO Regions Working Group
For Submission to the ICANN Board, 24 September 2007

Africa

* Northern Africa *

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

** Eastern Africa ** Middle Africa ** Southern Africa ** Western Africa

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

* Latin America and the Caribbean **

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

^† ** Central America^† ** South America * Northern America^† ^† The Caribbean, Central America, and Northern America together form the geographical continent of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

Asia

* Central Asia *

Eastern Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both Geography, geographical and culture, ethno-cultural terms. The modern State (polity), states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. ...

* South-eastern Asia *

Southern Asia Southern Asia may refer to: * South Asia, a geopolitical macroregion of SAARC countries * Southern Asia, a geographical subregion in Asia spanning the Iranian Plateau and the Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the phy ...

* Western Asia

Europe

* Eastern Europe (including

Northern Asia North Asia or Northern Asia, also referred to as Siberia, is the northern region of Asia, which is defined in geographical terms and is coextensive with the Asian part of Russia, and consists of three Russian regions east of the Ural Mountains: ...

) *

Northern Europe The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definition may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54th parallel north, 54°N, or may be based on other g ...

** Channel Islands * Southern Europe * Western Europe

Oceania

Australia and New Zealand Australasia is a region that comprises Australia, New Zealand and some neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term is used in a number of different contexts, including geopolitically, physiogeographically, philologically, and ecologica ...

* Melanesia * Micronesia * Polynesia

Maps

File:Africa-regions.png, UN geoscheme for Africa File:LocationNSAmUNGeoscheme.png, UN geoscheme for the Americas File:Asia-UN.png, UN geoscheme for Asia File:Europe subregion map UN geoscheme.svg, UN geoscheme for Europe File:Oceania UN Geoscheme Regions.svg, UN geoscheme for Oceania

References

{{reflist *geoscheme