Geography-Based (Atlas) Maps

We’re currently rebuilding our knowledge map store and upgrading the contents to take advantage of advances in MindManager capabilities. Knowledge maps in each category / sub-category will appear in due course.

Countries Of The World - Base Atlas

Countries Of The World - General & Geographic Knowledge Atlas

Countries Of The World - General Travellers Knowledge Atlas

Countries Of The World - GB Travellers Knowledge Atlas

Countries Of The World - Trade & Development Knowledge Atlas

Countries Of The World - GB Trade & Development Knowledge Atlas

Geography-Based (Atlas) Maps

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Geographic ‘space’ is one of the fundamental concepts that we humans have invented for making sense of, and mentally & physically structuring, our world and everything in it. Indeed for over 2,000 years we have been perfecting the art & science of cartography to record what things of particular types exist where within a defined space, both for ourselves and so we can easily communicate it to others.

Our atlas knowledge maps provide an alternative visual framework to ‘traditional’ geographic maps for visually recording & communicating what ‘geographically defined things’ of a particular type exist in the real world, and the relationships between them – be they at global, international, national or local level. However they also serve as both an index of, and a virtual portal to, all the definitive / official / plain old useful knowledge resources that currently exist about these ‘things’ in the public domain, and so can be freely accessed with a couple of mouse clicks.

With potentially 1000’s of branches – each of which can have multiple attached hypelinks & tags, or embedded images and data elements – they are information rich, visually engaging, intuitive to navigate, and retain the ‘big picture’ context. They are also more versatile and much easier to adapt & share ‘on the hoof’.

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Countries Of The World - Base Atlas

Visually structured framework of rich knowledge seed branches of macro geographic regions, sub-regions and ISO3166-1 defined countries of the world that is the base for all our global atlas maps.

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Countries Of The World - General & Geographic Knowledge Atlas

As per the Base Atlas plus collections of sub-branches with single links to official / definitive / plain old useful General and Geographic knowledge resources about each ISO3166-1 country of the world.

COMING SOON

Countries Of The World - General Travellers Knowledge Atlas

As per the General Atlas plus another collection of sub-branches with single links to official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources for international travellers to each ISO3166-1 country of the world.

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Countries Of The World - GB Travellers Knowledge Atlas

As per the International Travellers Atlas plus additional sub-branches with single links to official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources specifically for GB (United Kingdom) based international travellers.

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Countries Of The World - General Trade & Development Knowledge Atlas

As per the General Atlas plus another collection of sub-branches with single links to official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about international trade, aid & development in each ISO3166-1 country of the world.

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Countries Of The World - GB Trade & Development Knowledge Atlas

As per the International Trade & Development Atlas plus additional sub-branches with single links to official / definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources specifically for GB (United Kingdom) based citizens / organisations.

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By 're-casting' the every day tools we use to manage our world - such as atlases and calendars - in the form of visually structured, multi functional, digital knowledge maps, we can more easily connect with existing international, national & locally produced knowledge resources. This helps us, our communities and organisations avoid re-inventing wheels, better connect with each other, and do what we need to do quicker, easier and with a lot less stress 😉

I am managing IT global projects with team members and stakeholders in different countries / continents. This calendar [knowledge map] application enable at a glance to see bank holidays / national / religious events with an explanation in addition. Those explanations are a great facilitator to develop team spirit during our virtual meeting as I can exchange with each attendant on her/his national event.

Great to have all the links in the Travellers Knowledge Atlas in a single file. I downloaded it to my phone so I can look at it whenever I need to. I can also connect with the basic info I need with one click from the map rather than wading through google search results, especially handy when internet connection is limited. Have used for work stuff too.

Featured Resource

Countries Of The World - General & Geographic Knowledge Atlas

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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….

View sample HTML5 map full screen

COMING SOON - View a sample of this HTML knowledge map as a stand-alone webpage in a new browser tab - it may take a few seconds to load, please be patient 🙂

Knowledge seed branches are the foundation of our knowledge maps, with each seed branch representing a particular ‘building block’ (or an aspect of it) that we humans use to structure, and make sense of, the ‘real world’ we live in e.g. geographic areas and their subdivisions in our World Atlas Maps, time and it’s sub-division into manageable chunks in our Annual Calendar Maps etc. Seed branches are ‘visual knowledge rich’, with each branch having a mix of knowledge elements (most of which are unque to MindManger) embedded within it, or attached to it, that convey a ‘base level’ of core knowledge about the ‘building block’ along with links to the source knowledge resources i.e. they are mini knowledge portals in their own right.

The ‘knowledge elements’ are a mix of the following (i.e. not all elements are used in every seed branch)…

Outline Shape – The outline shape may convey knowledge about some aspect of the subject of the branch e.g. the nature of a geographic adminsitrative area’s borders with respect to the sea…

Colour – The colour of the fill / text may convey knowledge about some aspect of the subject of the branch. For example in our Political Knowledge Maps the colours associated with the main political parties are used throughout to make it easier to ‘see at a glance’ what the current situation is, such as the fill of the elected member branch being coloured by their political party, which in turn informs the fill colour of the constituency branch, which is also reflected in the cells of the embedded elections results spreadsheet table.

Image [Embedded] – Images – such as thumbnail location maps, flags, icons, people profile pictures etc. – provide a unique visual element that can quickly both convey knowledge to users and help them to navigate their way through the map. MindManager only allows a single image to be embedded within a branch, which may be sufficient for the requirements, but with a bit of forethought (and some software ‘jigery pokery’ 🙂) we can also create one that incorporates more than one visual element (e.g. a logo and a location map) so that, like the ‘rich’ branch text, more core knowledge can be ‘packed in’ to a single branch without visually overwhelming the user.

Text [Embedded] – MindManager’s unique ability to handle ‘rich’ text – i.e. text that can have variably formatted individual chatracters within a single text ‘string’ – means we can pack several different pieces of ‘core knowledge’ into the text of a single branch without it visually overwhelming the user (e.g. ‘The Name of a Geographic Area (The official Unique Identifying Code) The Type of Geographic Area’).

Note [Attached] – Contains supplementary information with all the elements of a word processed page – variably formatted (‘rich’) text, hyperlinks, tables and images.

Data Elements [Embedded] – MindManager has 2 unique ways to add contextual ‘facts & figures’ (i.e. text and number fields) to individual branches so that they are visible to the user (though only one can be used on any given branch)…

Spreadsheet Table / Chart – A branch specific spreadsheet table (i.e. not referencing cells in a spreadsheet file stored elsewhere), with all the usual spreadsheet functions (e.g. formulas), which, if the data is structured appropriately, can be toggled between ‘table’ and ‘chart’ view (though this view is ‘fixed’ when the map is exported to create the HTML version).

Multiple Single Data Fields [Embedded] – These are like single cells in a spreadsheet and multiple different fields can be attached to a branch, with the added bonus that the values in any one can be used as one of the triggers to visually format the branch using MindManager’s Smart Rules feature.

Index Marker Tags [Attached] – Arranged in groups and added to individual branches as appropriate, index marker tags add contextual knowledge, enable dynamic filtering to hide / show map content, aid internal navigation and can be used as one of the triggers to visually format the branch using MindManager’s Smart Rules feature.

Multiple Hyperlinks [Attached] – Another unique feature, multiple links to a range of official definitive / plain old useful knowledge resources about the subject of the seed branch – usually selected from the full range of general & geographic knowledge resource collections – help turn the map into a knowledge portal without adding to the visual clutter.

All the seed branches and their associated embedded / attached contextual knowledge elements used in this map are described in detail below…

UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic (Continental) Region Seed Branch

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..

The data can be numeric or text.
Numeric data values in fields can be calculated from other fields, either in the same branch or in other branches in the map. Formulas that define the values are built using MindManager’s unique ‘Autocalc’ feature.
The values in data fields may be used to control aspects of the visual formatting (eg. colour or shape) of the seed branch using Mindmanager’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature (again unique).

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…

provide additional contextual knowledge about the seed branch, visiable to all users.
enable dynamic filtering of the map content to only show / hide branches that have been tagged with the selected marker

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..

GEO – prefix indicates geographic tags, usually areas of some kind, often in a hierarchy eg. UN Geoscheme regions, sub-regions, countries, states, counties, communities etc. The names of GEO tags incorporate the official ID codes as well as names, and will always be present in some form in ‘atlas’ knowledge maps. GEO tags allow ‘spatial intelligence’ to be built into a map, even if it isn’t structured in a geographic way. When a map is ‘geo filtered’ using one of these tags it is the equivalent of using ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
TIME – prefix indicates time based tags. These can be generic (eg. months of the year, days of the week etc.) or specific (eg. a year, a date etc.). TIME tags will always be present in some form in ‘calendar’ knowledge maps.
RESOURCE – prefix indicates some aspect of a resource, such as the type of resource or who is responsible for creating / maintaining it.

ii) Within MindManager, tags…

provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details

UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic (Continental) Region 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…

original sources get used more often, by more people.
errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.

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…

greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.

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.

UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic (Continental) Intermediate / Sub-Region Seed Branch

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 Location 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.

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)

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..

The data can be numeric or text.
Numeric data values in fields can be calculated from other fields, either in the same branch or in other branches in the map. Formulas that define the values are built using MindManager’s unique ‘Autocalc’ feature.
The values in data fields may be used to control aspects of the visual formatting (eg. colour or shape) of the seed branch using Mindmanager’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature (again unique).

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…

provide additional contextual knowledge about the seed branch, visiable to all users.
enable dynamic filtering of the map content to only show / hide branches that have been tagged with the selected marker

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.

Note(s)
i) The names of the marker tag groups are prefixed acccording to the ‘type’ of marker tags they contain..

GEO – prefix indicates geographic tags, usually areas of some kind, often in a hierarchy eg. UN Geoscheme regions, sub-regions, countries, states, counties, communities etc. The names of GEO tags incorporate the official ID codes as well as names, and will always be present in some form in ‘atlas’ knowledge maps. GEO tags allow ‘spatial intelligence’ to be built into a map, even if it isn’t structured in a geographic way. When a map is ‘geo filtered’ using one of these tags it is the equivalent of using ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
TIME – prefix indicates time based tags. These can be generic (eg. months of the year, days of the week etc.) or specific (eg. a year, a date etc.). TIME tags will always be present in some form in ‘calendar’ knowledge maps.
RESOURCE – prefix indicates some aspect of a resource, such as the type of resource or who is responsible for creating / maintaining it.

ii) Within MindManager, tags…

provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details

UN GeoScheme Macro Geographic (Continental) Sub-Region Seed Branch

original sources get used more often, by more people.
errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.

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…

greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.

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.

iii) Not all of the above resources will exist for UN Geoscheme regions / sub-regions.

ISO3166-1 Country Of The World Seed Branch

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…

192 Sovereign Sates (classed as ‘independent’ in the standard)
57 Non-Sovereign Countries (classed as ‘not independent’ in the standard)

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…

Some are considered as integral parts of the sovereign state which happen to be overseas (even if it’s a completely different continent).
Some are overseas territories (i.e. ‘posessions’) of the (usually european) sovereign state, left over from the age of colonial empires. Even then there are different ‘types’ of territory, even for the same sovereign state.
Some – usually small island states – are in ‘free asociation’ with a much larger sovereign state.
Some may be ‘permanently uninhabited’ so the ‘relationship’ is somewhat one sided (though that term does not proclude the presence of miltary bases, research stations or wildlife reserves with their associated personnel).

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.

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..

The data can be numeric or text.
The values in cells can be calculated from other cells either in the same branch or in other branches. Formulas that define the values are built using MindManager’s ‘Autocalc’ feature (again unique).
The values in data fields may be used to control aspects of the visual formatting (eg. colour or shape) of the seed branch using Mindmanager’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature (again unique).

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 – 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..

GEO – prefix indicates geographic tags, usually areas of some kind, often in a hierarchy eg. UN Geoscheme regions, sub-regions, countries, states, counties, communities etc. The names of GEO tags incorporate the official ID codes as well as names, and will always be present in some form in ‘atlas’ knowledge maps. GEO tags allow ‘spatial intelligence’ to be built into a map, even if it isn’t structured in a geographic way. When a map is ‘geo filtered’ using one of these tags it is the equivalent of using ‘Lookup Tables’ in ‘GIS’.
TIME – prefix indicates time based tags. These can be generic (eg. months of the year, days of the week etc.) or specific (eg. a year, a date etc.). TIME tags will always be present in some form in ‘calendar’ knowledge maps.
RESOURCE – prefix indicates some aspect of a resource, such as the type of resource or who is responsible for creating / maintaining it.

ii) Within MindManager tags…

provide a useful means of internal navigation between map topics (clicking on the branch that is shown as being tagged with that marker in the ‘Index Task Pane’ will immediately focus the map on that banch).
can be generated automatically from branches (the title of the parent branch is the group name and those of all the immediate sub-branches become the individual tags within the group) .
can be copied and pasted in their groups from one map to another.

Attached Hyperlinks: Multiple
See next section for full details.

ISO3166-1 Country Of The World Seed Branch

original sources get used more often, by more people.
errors get spotted quicker, thereby improving the information quality for everybody.
updates get promulgated sooner to end users.
rather than us having to interpret original sources to create further information resources around “big picture” context for a subject we are not experts in, users of our map can “get it straight from the horses mouth” as it were, so everybody benefits.

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.

greatly reduces the visual clutter of the map.
means a full basket of links to official / definitive / useful knowledge resources about the subject can stay with the seed branch if it is re-used in other maps.

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.

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…

maps need fewer branches so are less visually cluttered.
a single branch can become a mini knowledge portal in it’s own right (one of the reasons why we call them ‘knowledge seed branches’).
links to core knowledge resources (usually the most important links taken from the Link Collections) can remain with the branch when it’s re-used in other maps, whether or not it’s the kep focus of that map.

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…

General Knowledge Resource Link Collection

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.

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 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.

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.

Geographic Knowledge Resource Link Collection

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…

Static Map Libraries – Collections of human created cartographic image files that can be downloaded and viewed offline.
Online Mapping Services – Automatically generate maps, often with different ‘layers’ of related geographic features that can be turned on or off and additional useful geographic tools (eg. route finder). These can usually only be accessed via a live internet connection.
Spatial Data Repositiories – Containing data files of computer-readable geographic information for use by anybody with the right specialised (‘GIS’) software. Asa well as being downloadable files, they may also be available as a feature service that is streamed directly to your application using an API.

The following knowledge sesource links make up the Geographic Collection for ISO3166-1 countries…

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.

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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