Knowledge Mappers is a digital mapping consultancy & publishing company with a unique mix of geographic & knowledge mapping expertise. Our ground-breaking products & services visually connect individuals, teams, organisations & communities with the knowledge resources that they need… to do what they need to do… quicker, easier, and with a lot less stress :-)
Professionally crafted & curated knowledge maps of real world & conceptual ‘spaces’ of human interest & endeavour. Like all maps, they are visually structured registers of the ‘things’ that define the ‘space’, and the ‘spatial’ relationships between them. But they are also registers of – and portals to – official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ knowledge resources about those ‘things’ available in the public domain. Maps can be downloaded in both original MindManager (.mmap) and HTML5 format, and so can be viewed in any browser, on any device, without the need for adtitonal plugins.
The School Travel Health Check (STHC) Spatial Analysis Service is an example of a GI consultancy project for one local authority in 2004 that soon “grew arms and legs” to become a ground-breaking, nationally available service. It provides high quality, spatial intelligence to local authorities, school communities and other stakeholders interested in how children travel to school, from where, and how far they travel to get there.
Our maps visually connect individuals, teams, organisations & communities with what they need to know… so that they can to do what they need to do… quicker, easier and with a lot less stress!
Knowledge Mappers is a unique, digital mapping consultancy & publishing company. Our ground-breaking knowledge products & services ‘visually connect’ people with what they need to know so that individuals, teams, organisations & communities can do what they need to do to move forward – quicker, easier and with a lot less stress 🙂
Our first passion is the mapping, analysis and sharing of geographic information (GI) – ie. the knowledge about the ‘places & spaces’ that make up our physical world and our interactions with them – and we have over 50 years of collective experience covering all aspects…
From it’s initial sourcing / capture, spatial analysis using GIS (from every day mapping tools like Google Maps and Google Earth, to full blown analysis software like ESRI, MapInfo and QGIS), and publishing & sharing with expert & non-expert stakeholders alike as both online map-enabled data portals and large format paper maps.
Indeed our School Travel Health Check (STHC) spatial analysis service – which was born out of an initial GI consultancy project to provide high quality, spatial intelligence data to one local authority, it’s school communities and other stakeholders interested in how children travel to their school, from where, and how far they travel to get there – has been combining all of our GI skills in a nationally available, ‘one-stop shop’ service since 2005.
We are also passionate about the development of spatial data infrastructures (SDIs) at all levels to ensure that this key knowledge about their world is accessible to all who need it – be they members of the GI Professional Community or communities defined geographically – and they have the capacity to use it to support them in whatever it is they need to do, once they have it.
Note we are a registered data processor with the UK Information Commissioner (ICO).
Our other passion is combining that same unique range of data / information / knowledge hunting & cartographic expertise with Corel (formerly ‘Mindjet’) MindManager – the world’s best information (‘mind’) mapping software – to create multi-function knowledge maps (‘hierarchical tree diagrams’) that visually capture not only the various individual elements that make up just about any ‘knowledge space’ and the ‘spatial’ inter-relationships between them, but also the (potentially 1000’s of) official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources available about them in the public domain. So they are an interactive map, a visualy structured ‘discover within the bigger picture context’ index of online knowledge resources, and a ‘minimal-click’ portal to those resources all in one.
We began using MindManager to map the knowledge in our own ‘business space’ in 2002, but soon realised the technique could also be applied to mapping knowledge about the ‘real world geographic spaces’ with which we were familiar (or so we thought!), and then the everyday ‘time spaces’ that rule our lives. In fact we realised that we could use it to map – and bring clarity to – just about any ‘knowledge space’ that we humans have created to conceptually structure, physically manage and navigate our world on a day to day basis.
(Note you can see here an illustrated ‘walk through’ of the process of turning an official spreadsheet of information found in the online public domain into a visually structured knowledge map, taken from our ScotlandTheMap project).
Realising the value of these new ‘knowledge atlas’ and ‘knowledge calendar’ maps to everybody trying to build a better world (or at least their bit of it) – whilst simultaneously struggling with information overload and getting all the other stakeholders ‘on the same page’ – we decided to share them via our digital download map store, in both HTML5 and MindManager (.mmap) format. HTML versions (an export feature unique to MindManager) can be viewed by anybody using any modern browser, on any device, on or offline, without the need for any plugins, whilst anybody with access to MindManager software can use the original MindManager format maps as ‘ready made’ templates to amend, adapt & repurpose (in whole or in part) in their own projects so they do not have to re-invent the knowledge wheel each time. (MindManager is more usually famed for it’s rich feature set for project planning & execution.)
We also offer a bespoke knowledge mapping service for clients – especially for communities – as well as consultancy & training. Along with our fellow partners in the MindManager International Value Added Partner (MIVAP) Network we also offer a complete MindManager consultancy service to help others to get the most value from this most amazing digital tool.
Browse our ground-breaking geographic and knowledge mapping products & services below. In our experience there are very few areas of human endeavor that don’t benefit from the increased understanding, buy-in and alignment amongst stakeholders that working visually brings. You are experts in what you do. Get in touch and let us help you do it better with what we do…
From the UK Chief Medical Officer to Local Council Officers, Project Managers and Headmasters, our mapping products and services have connected many individuals, teams, organisations & communities with the knowledge they need, to do what they need to do… quicker, easier, and with a lot less stress 🙂
Our School Travel Health Check (STHC) Spatial Analysis Service is cited as the example of best practice for public health in the South West Region in the 2009 Annual Report of the UK Government Chief Medical Officer (see “Increasing active travel by schoolchildren” – p73).
“This innovative sustainable development initiative aims to provide robust data that will allow schools, planners and individuals to develop more sustainable school travel options.”
“Active travel to school is an important source of physical activity for young people. It could be increased further. These statistics provide a useful baseline against which to measure progress, and should be used in conjunction with a qualitative assessment of local authority and school travel policies.”
Here are some of the reasons why our unique range of knowledge / information / data mapping skills & expertise can help you do what you need to do… quicker, easier and with a lot less stress…
We have decades of collective professional experience of all aspects of the sourcing, creation, analysis & sharing of information to provide meaningful insight to stakeholders.
Though technology is vitally important, it is just a tool, a means to an end. We never lose sight of the reason why we are using it, which is to provide you with meaningful insight into your world...
We use the same standard technology tools as you - MS Office, MapInfo, QGIS, Google Maps, MindManager, Bootstrap, browsers... It's what we do with them that makes the difference!
We like to work in a collaborative way with our clients and partners so that we achieve more together. You are experts at what you do. We would like to help you do it better with what we do 🙂
We've been employees in the public sector and large corporations ourselves, so we know what it's like from both sides. That's why we offer things like 'flexible invoicing' to fit in with your budgetary cycle.
The wasting of your time hunting for the information you need. The waste of effort in creating knowledge resources that aren't as well used as they could be by those who would benefit from them most. We're doing our best to sort that!
As one of MindManager's International Value Added partners we feed in to the Beta development program and can draw from a huge pool of knowledge to help you get the most from the world's best information mapping software.
We are on several government supplier lists, including the Scottish & UK governments, as well as local authorities. Let us know if there's anything we can do to make procurement of our products & services any easier for you.
Community is what binds us together as a species. It is through community that probelms are identified, solutions arrived at & delivered, and success celebrated & shared. We especially enjoy working with communities (geographic or virtual) to help them move forward with what they want to do.
Here’s the latest news from our blog….
Are you all sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin…
Our Countries of the World – General & Geographic Atlas builds on the knowledge framework provided by our ISO3166-1 Countries Of The World – Base Atlas through the addition of collections of sub-branches off of the country seed branch, each with a single hyperlink to official / definitive / plain old useful General or Geographic knowledge resources about it found in the public domian…
General Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes the country’s page(s) for BBC News, CIA World Fact Book & World Leaders & Cabinet Members Directory, ISO Online Portal, Wikipedia Category & Main Article, Portal & Outline, and those produced by the United Nations Staistics Division.
Geographic Knowledge Resource Link Collection – This includes online mapping services like Google Maps and Open Street Map (with a summary of all available services on GeoHack), static map libraries from the United Nations Geospatial Division & agencies (eg. UNITAR) and WikiMedia Commons Atlas of the World, as well as the Wikipedia Geography Sub-Category & Main Article.
A selection of the most fundamental / useful of these general & geographic links (ie. not all) are the ones that have been attached to the country seed branches themselves to create – alongside those for the UN defined Macro Geographical (Continental) Regions And Sub-Regions – the ‘bigger picture’ visual framework that is the atlas basemap for all our ‘countries of the world’ knowledg maps.
This map is the ideal starting point for ‘thumb & brain friendly’ desktop (or even ‘in the field’) research for anyone with an interest in specific countries of the world.
MindManager Users – As with all our maps, the MindManager (.mmap) version of this map is also both a base map to add your own content to, or a source of content that can be added to your own existing maps.
Explore the other tabs for comprehensive descriptions of the knowledge seed branches and knowledge link collections that make up this knowledge atlas map….
Knowledge seed branches provide a ‘base level’ of contextual knowledge about the subject embedded within, or attached to, them in the form of…
All the seed branches and their associated embedded / attached contextual knowledge elements used in this map are described in detail below…
Though the main focus of this knowledge atlas is ‘countries of the world’, they exist in a wider geographic, and geo-political, context. Thus rather than just arranging the country knowledge seed branches alphabetically by name – which is problematic for non-English speakers and ultimately just not a very useful logial structure for a knowledge atlas map – they are arranged according to macro-geographic regions (‘continents’) and sub-regions.
The United Nations Geoscheme (M49) standard ‘Geoscheme’ is the one that assigns the 249 countries and territories of the world (defined by the ISO3166-1 international standard) to 6 macro-regions and 22 sub-regions. It was devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) based on the M49 coding classification (the standard that provides the numerical part of the code for ISO3166).
From the Methodology for Geographic Region codes (M49) web page…
“The list of geographic regions presents the composition of geographical regions used by the Statistics Division in its publications and databases. Each country or area is shown in one region only. These geographic regions are based on continental regions; which are further subdivided into sub-regions and intermediary regions drawn as to obtain greater homogeneity in sizes of population, demographic circumstances and accuracy of demographic statistics.
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 by the United Nations.”
Thus the knowledge seed branches for the macro-geographic regions & sub-regions create the main framework structure of this knowledge atlas within which the country seed branches sit. The knowledge resources embedded within, or attached to, those seed branches are described in detail below…
UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic (Continental) Region Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Image: Flag & Thumbnail Location Map
All maps shows the coloured region within an otherwise greyscale world map with individual country borders. Each region & sub-regions have distinct but common colour schemes e.g. all AFRICA sub-regions are green.
Note(s)
i) We include thumbnail location maps on geographic area seed topics where possible to aid instant user identification and place it in spatial context. They may be sourced from maps freely available in the public domain, or created by us especially from public domain spatial data using GIS or other software tools.
ii) All images used in our maps are always optimised to minimise the file sizes.
Title: Official Name & Unique Identifying Codes
These are meticulously taken from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the country and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases…
UN GEOSCHEME REGION NAME
(Official UN GeoScheme (M49) Code)
Note(s)
i) Further information on the region / sub-region names & codes can be foiund on the Methodology for Geographic Region codes (M49) page of the UN Statistical Division’s (UNdata) website. It helpfully also contains the region, sub-region & country names in all the official lanuages of the UN – English, Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish & Arabic.
Embedded Data Fields: Region ‘Facts & Figures’’
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of useful stats, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from the official UNdata stats where available, or the CIA World Fact Book, or Wikipedia.
The data fields embeded in this seed topic are…
*REGION ALL Countries – Subtotal of all ISO3166-1 official countries in the region (automatically calculated from the values in other data fields embedded in the sub-region sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘autocalc’ feature).
*REGION Sovereign States – Subtotal of all ISO3166-1 official sovereign states in the region (automatically calculated from the values in other data fields embedded in the sub-region sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘autocalc’ feature).
*REGION Non-Sovereign States – Subtotal of all ISO3166-1 official non-sovereign states in the region (automatically calculated from the values in other data fields embedded in the sub-region sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘autocalc’ feature).
REGION Surface Area (sq km) (2020 est. UN) – As given in theUNdata stats
REGION Population (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats, estimated to the nearest 1000
REGION Pop Density (per sq km) (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats (ie. not calculated by us from the Surface Area and Population data)
Note(s)
i) This embedded feature can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner of the embedded feature.
ii) Data fields are like single cells in spreadsheets..
iii) Fields marked with an *asterisk above (in bold with the gear icon in the embedded fields in the branch in the map) are calculated from the values of data fields in sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘auto-calculation’ feature.
iv) UN data is taken from the official UN Statistics Division (UNData) regional data statstics. These are updated and published online annually.
Index Marker Tags & Groups: Various
Arranged in groups and attached to branches as required, index marker tags…
The inder marker tags attached to this seed topic are from the following groups…
GEO – UN Geoscheme – Region is tagged with it’s own tag from the Geoscheme tag group, which may also be used on other branches in the map.
GEO – REGION – UN Geoscheme (Numeric) – Just the numeric code part of the UN Geoscheme listing. Note this code is defined as part of the UN Staistics Division M49 standard rather than in ISO3166.
Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain..
ii) Within MindManager, tags…
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details
UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic Region (Continent) Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel. whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Information Knowledge Resource Links
UNdata Stats – Official statistics about the region compiled, published & maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNdata).
Wikipedia Category: GeoScheme Region – List page of all region related categories.
Wikipedia: United Nations GeoScheme For Region Page – This is the Wikipedia article specifically about the UN Geoscheme region and the list of ISO3166-1 countries within it..
Wikipedia: GeoScheme Region Page – This is the main Wikipedia article summarising the climate, geography and demographics of the regions as general geographic areas (equivelant to a’country page’ article). There may also be a section on the countries within the sub-region in differing classification systems used by other international organisations.
Wikipedia: GeoScheme Region Portal – Wikipedia Portals are another useful entry-point that help readers and/or editors navigate their way through Wikipedia topic areas, promote content and encourage contribution. They may be associated with one or more WikiProjects, such as those concerned with gathering & publishing the information related to each Geoscheme region on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia: GeoScheme Region Outline Page – An introduction to the region structured as a series of hierarchical lists of links to essential Wikipedia resources about it.
Wikivoyage: GeoScheme Region Travel Guide – Another Wikimedia project, Wikivoyage is built in collaboration by volunteer authors from around the globe who write without pay, with the spirit of sharing knowledge that makes travel so enjoyable. Whenever travellers meet each other on the road, they swap info about the places they came from and ask questions about places they’re going. Wikivoyage wants to make it easy to share that knowledge and let others share it.
Geographic Information Knowledge Resource Links
UN Geospatial General Map Library: Region – United Nations Geospatial provide expert support and geospatial data products and services – General maps, Web-services, Thematic analysis & maps, Earth observation & imagery, and Archives – to the many bodies and missions of the UN.
Wikimedia Commons – Atlas of the Region – The Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps compiled by the Wikimedia Commons project. There are sub-atlases for all regions.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the above resources will exist for UN Geoscheme regions / sub-regions.
The knowledge resources listed below are by and large the same as for the Macro Geographic Regions above, athough there are usually fewer of them for sub-regions, and there is more ambiguity as to their definition in different sources.
UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic (Continental) Sub-Region Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Image: Thumbnail ocation Map
All maps shows the coloured rsub-region within an otherwise greyscale world map with individual country borders. Each region & sub-regions have distinct but common colour schemes e.g. all AFRICA sub-regions are green.
Note(s)
i) We include thumbnail location maps on geographic area seed topics where possible to aid instant user identification and place it in spatial context. They may be sourced from maps freely available in the public domain, or created by us especially from public domain spatial data using GIS or other software tools.
ii) All images used in our maps are always optimised to minimise the file sizes.
Text: Official Name & Unique Identifying Codes
These are meticulously taken from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the country and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases…
UN GEOSCHEME REGION NAME
(Official UN GeoScheme Code)
Note(s)
i) Further information on the region / sub-region names & codes can be foiund on the Methodology for Geographic Region codes (M49) page of the UN Statistical Division’s (UNdata) website. It helpfully also contains the region, sub-region & country names in all the official lanuages of the UN – English, Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish & Arabic.
Embedded Data Fields: Region ‘Facts & Figures’’
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of useful stats, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from the official UNdata stats where available, or the CIA World Fact Book, or Wikipedia.
The data fields embeded in this seed topic are…
SUB-REGION ALL Countries – Subtotal of all ISO3166-1 official countries in the region.
SUB-REGION Sovereign States – Subtotal of all ISO3166-1 official sovereign states in the region.
SUB-REGION Non-Sovereign States – Subtotal of all ISO3166-1 official non-sovereign states in the region.
SUB-REGION Surface Area (sq km) (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats
SUB-REGION Population (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats, estimated to the nearest 1000
SUB-REGION Pop Density (per sq km) (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats (ie. not calculated by us from the Surface Area and Population data)
Note(s)
i) This embedded feature can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner of the embedded feature.
ii) Data fields are like single cells in spreadsheets..
iii) Fields marked with an *asterisk above (in bold with the gear icon in the embedded fields in the branch in the map) are calculated from the values of data fields in sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘auto-calculation’ feature.
iv) UN data is taken from the official UN Statistics Division (UNData) regional data statstics. These are updated and published online annually.
Index Marker Tags & Groups: Various
Arranged in groups and attached to branches as required, index marker tags…
The inder marker tags attached to this seed topic are from the following groups…
GEO – UN Geoscheme – Sub-Region is tagged with it’s own tag from the Geoscheme tag group, which may also be used on other branches in the map.
GEO – REGION – UN Geoscheme (Numeric) – Just the numeric code part of the UN Geoscheme listing. Note this code is defined as part of the UN Staistics Division M49 standard rather than in ISO3166.
Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain..
ii) Within MindManager, tags…
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details
UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic Sub-Region (Continent) Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel. whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Information Resource Links
UNdata Stats – Official statistics about the sub-region compiled, published & maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNdata).
Wikipedia Category: GeoScheme Sub-Region – List page of all sub-region related categories.
Wikipedia: United Nations GeoScheme For Sub-Region Page – This is the Wikipedia article specifically about the UN Geoscheme sub-region and the list of ISO3166-1 countries within it..
Wikipedia: GeoScheme Region Page – This is the main Wikipedia article summarising the climate, geography and demographics of the sub-regions as general geographic areas (equivelant to a’country page’ article). There may also be a section on the countries within the sub-region in differing classification systems used by other international organisations.
Wikipedia: GeoScheme Sub-Region Portal – Wikipedia Portals are another useful entry-point that help readers and/or editors navigate their way through Wikipedia topic areas, promote content and encourage contribution. They may be associated with one or more WikiProjects, such as those concerned with gathering & publishing the information related to each country on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia: GeoScheme Sub-Region Outline Page – An introduction to the region structured as a series of hierarchical lists of links to essential Wikipedia resources about it.
Wikivoyage: GeoScheme Sub-Region Travel Guide – Another Wikimedia project, Wikivoyage is built in collaboration by volunteer authors from around the globe who write without pay, with the spirit of sharing knowledge that makes travel so enjoyable. Whenever travellers meet each other on the road, they swap info about the places they came from and ask questions about places they’re going. Wikivoyage wants to make it easy to share that knowledge and let others share it.
Geographic Information Knowledge Resource Links
UN Geospatial General Map Library: Sub-Region – United Nations Geospatial provide expert support and geospatial data products and services – General maps, Web-services, Thematic analysis & maps, Earth observation & imagery, and Archives – to the many bodies and missions of the UN.
Wikimedia Commons – Atlas of the Sub-Region – The Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps compiled by the Wikimedia Commons project. There are sub-atlases for some but not all sub-regions.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the above resources will exist for UN Geoscheme regions / sub-regions.
Although there is no universal agreement on the number of ‘countries’ in the world (since a number of states have disputed sovereignty status), there is a longstanding international standard – ‘ISO3166: Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions’ – and so that is the basis on which a ‘country’ is included in the atlas. Which macro-geographic sub-region (and therefore region) it is assigned to, is defined by the United Nations Geoscheme (M49) standard.
However even within ISO3166 all ‘countries’ are not created equal. The main division is whether a country is sovereign or not i.e. it has complete control over all it’s internal affairs, it’s dealings with other countries and, most crucially, is recognised by all the other sovereign states. Thus of the 249 ‘countries’ defined by ISO3166-1, there are…
The major difference between them in geo-political terms is that ‘Non-Sovereign Countries’ cannot be a member state of the United Nations, but they do always have a dependent relationship with a sovereign state, who will at the very least represent them in international affairs. However the nature of that relationship differs greatly…
Thus to help users we have visually differentiated between the 2 country ‘types’ within this map – ‘Non sovereign countries’ have an asterisk* after their name (including in their coresponding index marker tag), and the knowledge seed branch text is in italic.
ISO3166-1 Country Of The World Seed Branch
MindManager provides an unparalleled range of ‘information cartography’ functionality that enables contextual knowledge to be embedded and attached to map branches in multiple ways…
Branch Outline Shape
For geographic area seed branches the outline shape indicates the nature of it’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours…
CIRCLE = all coastal borders (ie. ‘island(s)’)
HEXAGON = all land borders (ie. ‘land-locked’)
ROUNDED RECTANGLE = mixed coastal & Land borders
Note(s)
i) Assignment of shapes to geographic area seed branches is controlled by MindManager’s unique Smart Rule feature using the ‘GEO – Country – Borders’ tag (eqivelant to thematic mapping in GIS).
Image: Country Flag & Thumbnail Location Map
Incorporating country flags into map branches makes for swifter navigation and improved user experience.
Note(s)
i) Flag images are a free download from the good people at Icondrawer.com.
ii) All map images are optimised to reduce the file size.
Text: Official Name & Unique Identifying Codes
These are meticulously taken from official sources to ensure unambiguous identification of the country and easy cross-referencing with other data sources, especially GIS databases…
ISO3166-1 Official Country ‘Short Name’ in English
(ISO3166-1 alpha-2 2 character letter code – ISO3166-1 alpha-3 3 character letter code – ISO3166-1 numeric 3 digit code)
ISO3166-1 Official Country ‘Full Name’ in English
Note(s)
i) An * asterisk after the short name and italic font indicates the country is a non-sovereign state. The formatting is controlled by the attached ‘GEO – Country – Sovereign Status’ tag using MindManager’s unique Smart Rules feature.
ii) One of the multiple hyperlinks attached to the seed branch is to the relavant page for the ISO3166 official name & code for the specific country on the ISO Online Portal. Thus the ones used on the map can be checked against the original source if it’s important (though codes & names rarely change, and all changes are documented on the page on the portal).
Embedded Data Fields: Country ‘Facts & Figures’
Single data fields embedded in the seed branch are another unique MindManager feature. They provide quick reference of useful stats, saving the user the time and effort of looking them up in the linked knowledge resources. These are taken from the official UNdata stats where available, or the CIA World Fact Book, or Wikipedia.
The data fields embeded in this seed topic are…
Surface Area (sq km) (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats
Population (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats, estimated to the nearest 1000
Pop Density (per sq km) (2020 est. UN) – As given in the UNdata stats (ie. not calculated by us from the Surface Area and Population data)
Coastline (km) – The cumulative length of the country’s coastline, as given in the CIA World Fact Book.
Land Borders (km) – The cumulative length of the country’s land borders with neighbouring countries, as given in the CIA World Fact Book.
Land Border Countries – The number of countries the country shares land borders with, as given in the CIA World Fact Book.
Mean Elevation (m) – The mean elevation of the country, as given in the CIA World Fact Book.
UN Member State since – Date on which the country joined the United Nations.
Note(s)
i) This embedded feature can be hidden / shown by clicking the green toggle arrow just above the top right corner of the embedded feature.
ii) Data fields are like single cells in spreadsheets..
iii) Fields marked with an *asterisk above (in bold with the gear icon in the embedded fields in the branch in the map) are calculated from the values of data fields in sub-branches using MindManager’s unique ‘auto-calculation’ feature.
iv) UN data is taken from the official UN Statistics Division (UNData) regional data statstics. These are updated and published online annually.
Index Marker Tags & Goups: Various
For additional contextual knowledge and dynamic map filtering…
GEO – REGION – UN Geoscheme (Numeric) – Just the numeric code part of the UN Geoscheme listing. Note this code is defined as part of the UN Staistics Division M49 standard rather than in ISO3166.
GEO – UN Geoscheme – All appropriate tags for the macro region and sub-region.
GEO – Country (ISO3166-1) – Tagged with it’s own tag – ISO3166-1 Official Country ‘Short Name’ in English (ISO3166-1 alpha-2 2 character letter code – ISO3166-1 alpha-3 3 character letter code – ISO3166-1 numeric 3 digit code). As only the country seed branch is tagged from this group, it can be used to internally navigate between the country seed topics.
GEO – Country – Sovereign Status – Either a sovereign state or non-soverign state.
GEO – Country – Borders – As per the topic shape that indicates the nature of the country’s borders with it’s equivelant neighbours – all coastal borders (ie. ‘island(s)’), all land borders (ie. ‘land-locked’), mixed coastal & Land borders
GEO – Country – Shared Land Borders – The countries the country shares land borders with, as given in the CIA World Fact Book.
GEO – Country – Dependent Relationships – The other ISO3166-1 countries that have a dependant relationship with this country eg. as an oversses territory. Relationships are recorded both ways so the ‘mother’ country seed branch is tagged with the dependant countries, and all the dependant countries are tagged with the ‘mother’ country
Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain..
ii) Within MindManager tags…
Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.
ISO3166-1 Country Of The World Seed Branch
One of our philosophies at KnowledgeMappers is not to reinvent the wheel. whenever possible. Thus we include hyperlinks to original official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge sources whenever possible, as well as links to Wikipedia pages for additional, “bigger picture” context (often not obvious, or even absent from, the original source). By doing this…
The following knowledge resource links are attached to this seed branch (arranged in alphabetical order within the groupings)…
General Information Knowledge Resource Links
CIA World Fact Book: ISO3166-1 Country Profiles – Maintained regularly by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the World Fact Book contains information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.
CIA World Leaders Directory: ISO3166-1 Country Pages – The US Central Intelligence Agency publishes and updates the online directory of Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments weekly. The directory is intended to be used primarily as a reference aid and includes as many governments of the world as is considered practical, some of them not officially recognized by the United States. Regimes with which the United States has no diplomatic exchanges are indicated by the initials NDE.
ISO3166-1 Online – The official entry for the country and it’s sub-division’s codes in the International Standards Organisation online standards portal.
United Nations – Website of the Member State Misson. Some are hosted by the UN, some by the country itself so they vary in style.
UNdata Stats – Official statistics about the country compiled, published & maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNdata).
Wikipedia Category: ISO3166-1 Country – List page of all country related categories.
Wikipedia: ISO3166-1 Country Page – This is the main Wikipedia article summarising the etymology, history, geography, administrative divisions, politics, economy, demographics & culture of the country. It also serves as a jumping off point to the many, more detailed Wikipedia articles on the country, as well as external sources on the web.
Wikipedia: ISO3166-1 Country Portal – Wikipedia Portals are another useful entry-point that help readers and/or editors navigate their way through Wikipedia topic areas, promote content and encourage contribution. They may be associated with one or more WikiProjects, such as those concerned with gathering & publishing the information related to each country on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia: ISO3166-1 Country Outline Page – An introduction to the ISO3166-1 country structured as a series of hierarchical lists of links to essential Wikipedia resources about it.
Wikivoyage: ISO3166-1 Travel Guide – Another Wikimedia project, Wikivoyage is built in collaboration by volunteer authors from around the globe who write without pay, with the spirit of sharing knowledge that makes travel so enjoyable. Whenever travellers meet each other on the road, they swap info about the places they came from and ask questions about places they’re going. We want to make it easy to share that knowledge and let others share it.
Geographic Information Knowledge Resource Links
GeoHack Index Of Global & Local Mapping Services: ISO3166-1 Country – Tool used by Wikipedia & other projects to access web mapping services centred on geographically referenced entities (such as countries of the world). As well as global services like Google Maps and Open Street Map, local services, such as those provided by national mapping agencies, are also listed.
Google Maps: ISO3166-1 Country – Link to Google Map map centred on the country.
Open Street Map: ISO3166-1 Country – Link to Open Street Map map centred on the country.
Note(s)
i) MindManager has the unique ability to have multiple hyperlinks attached to a single map branch, and to edit the default title text of the link to make it more meaningful to the user. This…
The chain icon at the end of a branch (rather than the favicon (icon) served by the linked-to website) indicates where a branch has more than one hyperlink.
ii) In the circular knowledge economy way of Wikipedia if there is knowledge that you could add to an existing page that is linked to, or even starting a page that doesn’t yet exist, then go for it! That’s what it’s all about!
iii) Not all of the above resources will exist for UN Geoscheme regions / sub-regions.
Hyperlinks to official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ knowledge resources found in the public domain is one of the main focus of our knowledge maps. Links are added to our maps in 2 ways…
Multiple Hyperlinks Attached To Seed Branches – MindManager has the unique ability to attach multiple hyperlinks to a single map branch. This means that…
The multiple hyperlinks attached to the different types of knowledge seed branches in this map are already detailed in the ‘Seed Branches’ tab.
Knowledge Link Sub-Branch Collections – Sub-branches – each with a single attached hyperlink to an external knowledge resource – are grouped into related collections, such as ‘General Knowledge Resources’ or ‘Geographic Knowledge Resources’. This makes for easier, more ‘thumb friendly’ browsing & discovery of knowledge resources, which helps in more intensive activities like prolonged desktop research.
The knowledge link sub-branch collections in this map are detailed below…
ISO3166-1 Countries Of The World
This collection contains links to official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ knolwedge resources about the ISO3166-1 country. It is an ideal starting point for those who want to find out more about about it, be it for casual browsing or more focused desktop research for a specific purpose…
BBC News: ISO3166-1 Country Profiles – Instant guides to the history, politics and economic background of countries and territories, which include audio and video clips from BBC archives.
CIA World Fact Book: ISO3166-1 Country Profiles – Maintained regularly by the US Central Intelligence Agency, the World Fact Book contains information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities. The Reference tab includes: maps of the major world regions, as well as Flags of the World, a Physical Map of the World, a Political Map of the World, a World Oceans map, and a Standard Time Zones of the World map.
CIA World Leaders Directory: ISO3166-1 Country Pages – The US Central Intelligence Agency publishes and updates the online directory of Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments weekly. The directory is intended to be used primarily as a reference aid and includes as many governments of the world as is considered practical, some of them not officially recognized by the United States. Regimes with which the United States has no diplomatic exchanges are indicated by the initials NDE.
ISO3166-1 Online – The official entry for the country and it’s sub-division’s codes in the International Standards Organisation online standards portal.
United Nations – Website of the Member State Misson. Some are hosted by the UN, some by the country itself so they vary in style.
UNdata Stats – Official statistics about the country compiled, published & maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNdata).
Wikipedia Category: ISO3166-1 Country – List page of all country related categories.
Wikipedia: ISO3166-1 Country Page – This is the main Wikipedia article summarising the etymology, history, geography, administrative divisions, politics, economy, demographics & culture of the country. It also serves as a jumping off point to the many, more detailed Wikipedia articles on the country, as well as external sources on the web.
Wikipedia: ISO3166-1 Country Portal – Wikipedia Portals are another useful entry-point that help readers and/or editors navigate their way through Wikipedia topic areas, promote content and encourage contribution. They may be associated with one or more WikiProjects, such as those concerned with gathering & publishing the information related to each country on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia: ISO3166-1 Country Outline Page – Outlines are an introduction to the ISO3166-1 country structured as a series of hierarchical lists of links to essential Wikipedia resources about it.
Wikipedia: Index of ISO3166-1 Country-related topics – Each ISO3166-1 country is also a Wikipedia category, and this index page lists all the sub-categories and pages attributed to the category. Another good starting point for detailed, desktop research.
Wikimedia Commons: Index of ISO3166-1-Related Images & Media Files – Each ISO3166-1 country is also a category on Wikimedia Commons, the common media file (images, sound and video clips) repository for all Wikimedia projects (e.g. Wikipedia). The content listed on this page is in the public domain and freely-licensed for everyone to use, in their own language, you do not need to belong to one of the projects to use it.
Wikivoyage: ISO3166-1 Travel Guide – Another Wikimedia project, Wikivoyage is built in collaboration by volunteer authors from around the globe who write without pay, with the spirit of sharing knowledge that makes travel so enjoyable. Whenever travellers meet each other on the road, they swap info about the places they came from and ask questions about places they’re going. We want to make it easy to share that knowledge and let others share it.
General Note(s)
i) All knowledge resources linked to in our collections are freely available in the public domain.
ii) Not all of the knowledge resources listed above exist for all ISO3166-1 countries. This is especially true for non-sovereign states, which may be fully autonomous or semi autonomous from the home state, or may be a fully integrated part of it.
iii) Selected links from the General & Geographic collections are attached to the ISO3166-1 Country seed branch.
iv) All knowledge resource link collection sub-branches are tagged with the ‘RESOURCE – Owner’ index marker tag.
ISO3166-1 Countries Of The World
This collection contains links to official / definitive / ‘plain old useful’ geographic knolwedge resources about the ISO3166-1 country. It is a mixture of…
The following knowledge sesource links make up the Geographic Collection for ISO3166-1 countries…
GeoHack Index Of Global & Local Mapping Services: ISO3166-1 Country – Tool used by Wikipedia & other projects to access web mapping services centred on geographically referenced entities (such as countries of the world). As well as global services like Google Maps and Open Street Map, local services, such as those provided by national mapping agencies, are also listed.
GeoNames: ISO3166-1 Country Page – Country main page on the GeoNames website, which lists various codes and statistics related to it along with a simple line map showing the sub-divisions. There are links to sub-pages for Administrative Divisions, Feature Statistics, Largest Cities, Highest Mountains, Other Country Names and Postal codes. The website is populated from the GeoNames database – which contains over 25 million geographical names, over 11 million unique features of 4.8 million populated places and 13 million alternate names. It is available for download free of charge under a creative commons attribution license. You can find out more here.
Google Maps: ISO3166-1 Country – Link to Google Map map centred on the country.
MapAction Map Library: ISO3166-1 Country – MapAction is a UK based charity that works across the globe to ensure disaster response teams have access to the life-saving maps and data needed to deliver the right aid to the right places, as quickly as possible. This link to their archive makes existing geographic information resources immediately accessible.
Open Street Map: ISO3166-1 Country – Link to Open Street Map map centred on the country.
UN Geospatial General Map Library: ISO3166-1 Country – United Nations Geospatial provide expert support and geospatial data products and services – General maps, Web-services, Thematic analysis & maps, Earth observation & imagery, and Archives – to the many bodies and missions of the UN. Note not all countries have maps in the library.
UNITAR Map Library: ISO3166-1 Country – The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) aims to develop the individual, institutional and organizational capacities of countries and other UN stakeholders through high-quality learning solutions and related knowledge products and services to enhance decision making and to support country-level action for overcoming global challenges. They have a growing library of geographic maps and data products produced in response to disasters & crises events around the world since 2004.
Wikimedia Commons Atlas Of The World: ISO3166-1 Country – The Wikimedia Atlas of the World is an organized and commented collection of geographical, political and historical maps available at Wikimedia Commons.
Wikipedia Category: Geography of ISO3166-1 Country – Contains all sub-categories and pages about the geography of the country. A good ‘jumping off point’ for further armchair / desktop exploration…
Wikipedia: Geography of ISO3166-1 Country Page – The main article about the geography of the country…
General Note(s)
i) All knowledge resources linked to in our collections are freely available in the public domain.
ii) Not all of the knowledge resources listed above exist for all ISO3166-1 countries. This is especially true for non-sovereign states, which may be fully autonomous or semi autonomous from the home state, or may be a fully integrated part of it.
iii) Selected links from the General & Geographic collections are attached to the ISO3166-1 Country seed branch.
iv) All knowledge resource link collection sub-branches are tagged with the ‘RESOURCE – Owner’ index marker tag.
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