country_name: Convert and translate country names

In countries: Deal with Country Data in an Easy Way

Convert and translate country names

Description

This function recognises and converts country names to different nomenclatures and languages using a fuzzy matching algorithm. country_name() can identify countries even when they are provided in mixed formats or in different languages. It is robust to small misspellings and recognises many alternative country names and old nomenclatures.

Usage

country_name(
  x,
  to = "ISO3",
  fuzzy_match = TRUE,
  verbose = FALSE,
  simplify = TRUE,
  poor_matches = FALSE,
  na_fill = FALSE,
  custom_table = NULL
)

Arguments

x	A vector of country names
to	A string containing the desired naming conventions to which x should be converted to (e.g. "ISO3", "name_en", "UN_fr", ...). For a list of all possible values click here or refer to the vignette on country names vignette("dealing_with_names"). Default is "ISO3", which converts to the 249 3-letter country codes currently in ISO standard 3166.
fuzzy_match	Logical value indicating whether fuzzy matching of country names should be allowed (TRUE), or only exact matches are allowed (FALSE). Default is TRUE.
verbose	Logical value indicating whether the function should print to the console a full report. Default is FALSE.
simplify	Logical value. If set to TRUE the function will return a vector of converted names. If set to FALSE, the function will return a list object containing the converted vector and additional details on the country matching process. Default is TRUE.
poor_matches	Logical value. If set to FALSE (the default), the function will return NA in case of poor matching. If set to TRUE, the function will always return the closest matching country name, even if the match is poor.
na_fill	Logical value. If set to TRUE, any NA in the output names will be filled with the original country name supplied in x. The default is FALSE (no filling). In general, NAs are produced if: 1) the country is not present in the nomenclature requested in to (e.g. country_name("Abkhazia", to = "ISO3")), 2) the input country name is NA, 3) No exact match is found and the user sets the option fuzzy_match = FALSE, 4) When the fuzzy match algorithm does not find a good match and the user sets the option poor_match = FALSE. The na_fill argument gives the option to replace the resulting NA with the original value in x.
custom_table	Custom conversion table to be used. This needs to be a data.frame object. Default is NULL.

Value

Returns a vector of converted country names. If multiple nomenclatures are passed to the argument to, the vectors are arranged in a data frame. If simplify=FALSE, the function will return a list object.

See Also

is_country, match_table, find_countrycol

Examples

#Convert country names to a single nomenclatures: (e.g. 3-letters ISO code)
country_name(x=c("UK","Estados Unidos","Zaire","C#te d^ivoire"), to= "ISO3")

#When multiple arguments are provided to the - to - argument, a data frame is returned:
country_name(x=c("UK","Estados Unidos","Zaire","C#te d^ivoire"), to= c("UN_en","UN_fr","ISO3"))

#This function can also be used to translate country names: (e.g. translating all to Chinese)
country_name(x=c("UK","Estados Unidos","Zaire","C#te d^ivoire"), to= "name_zh")

countries documentation built on April 12, 2025, 2:11 a.m.