# Dealing with country names

## Identifying country names

The function `is_country()` allows to check whether a string is a country name. The argument `fuzzy_match` can be used to increase tolerance and allow for small typos in the names.

    is_country(c("United States","Unated States","dot","DNK",123), fuzzy_match = FALSE) # FALSE is the default and will run faster
    #> [1]  TRUE FALSE FALSE  TRUE FALSE
    is_country(c("United States","Unated States","dot","DNK",123), fuzzy_match = TRUE)
    #> [1]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE FALSE

Furthermore, `is_country()` can also be used to check for a specific subset of countries. In the following example, the function is used to test whether the string relates to India or Sri Lanka, while allowing for different naming conventions and languages.

    is_country(x=c("Ceylon","LKA","Indonesia","Inde"), check_for=c("India","Sri Lanka"))
    #> [1]  TRUE  TRUE FALSE  TRUE

Finally, the package also provides the function `find_countrycol()`, which can be used to find which columns in a data frame contain country names.

## Getting a list of country names

The functions `list_countries()` and `random_countries()` allow to get a list of country names. The former will return a list of ALL countries, while the second provides `n` randomly picked countries.

    random_countries(5)
    #> [1] "Myanmar"    "Antarctica" "Azerbaijan" "Algeria"    "France"
    list_countries()[1:5]
    #> [1] "Afghanistan"    "Åland Islands"  "Albania"        "Algeria"
    #> [5] "American Samoa"

The function allows to request country names in different languages and nomenclatures. The list of all possible languages and nomenclatures is available in the next section.

    random_countries(5, nomenclature = "ISO3")
    #> [1] "MDV" "TJK" "HKG" "VGB" "GRC"
    random_countries(5, nomenclature = "name_ar")
    #> [1] "جزيرة هيرد وجزر ماكدونالد" "مصر"
    #> [3] "موريتانيا"                 "روسيا"
    #> [5] "عمان"

## Converting and translating country names

The function `country_name()` can be used to convert country names to different naming conventions or to translate them to different languages.

    example <- c("United States","DR Congo", "Morocco")

    # Getting 3-letters ISO code
    country_name(x= example, to="ISO3")
    #> [1] "USA" "COD" "MAR"

    # Translating to Spanish
    country_name(x= example, to="name_es")
    #> [1] "Estados Unidos"                  "República Democrática del Congo"
    #> [3] "Marruecos"

If multiple arguments are passed to the argument `to`, the function will output a `data.frame` object, with one column corresponding to every naming convention.

    # Requesting 2-letter ISO codes and translation to Spanish and French
    country_name(x= example, to=c("ISO2","name_es","name_fr"))
    #>   ISO2                         name_es                          name_fr
    #> 1   US                  Estados Unidos                       États-Unis
    #> 2   CD República Democrática del Congo République démocratique du Congo
    #> 3   MA                       Marruecos                            Maroc

The `to` argument supports all the following naming conventions:

CODE | DESCRIPTION
--- | ---
simple | This is a simple english version of the name containing only ASCII characters. This nomenclature is available for all countries.
ISO3 | 3-letter country codes as defined in ISO standard `3166-1 alpha-3`. This nomenclature is available only for the territories in the standard (currently 249 territories).
ISO2 | 2-letter country codes as defined in ISO standard `3166-1 alpha-2`. This nomenclature is available only for the territories in the standard (currently 249 territories).
ISO_code | Numeric country codes as defined in ISO standard `3166-1 numeric`. This country code is the same as the UN’s country number (M49 standard). This nomenclature is available for the territories in the ISO standard (currently 249 countries).
UN_xx | Official UN name in 6 official UN languages. Arabic (`UN_ar`), Chinese (`UN_zh`), English (`UN_en`), French (`UN_fr`), Spanish (`UN_es`), Russian (`UN_ru`). This nomenclature is only available for countries in the M49 standard (currently 249 territories).
WTO_xx | Official WTO name in 3 official WTO languages: English (`WTO_en`), French (`WTO_fr`), Spanish (`WTO_es`). This nomenclature is only available for WTO members and observers (currently 189 entities).
name_xx | Translation of ISO country names in 28 different languages: Arabic (`name_ar`), Bulgarian (`name_bg`), Czech (`name_cs`), Danish (`name_da`), German (`name_de`), Greek (`name_el`), English (`name_en`), Spanish (`name_es`), Estonian (`name_et`), Basque (`name_eu`), Finnish (`name_fi`), French (`name_fr`), Hungarian (`name_hu`), Italian (`name_it`), Japponease (`name_ja`), Korean (`name_ko`), Lithuanian (`name_lt`), Dutch (`name_nl`), Norwegian (`name_no`), Polish (`name_po`), Portuguese (`name_pt`), Romenian (`name_ro`), Russian (`name_ru`), Slovak (`name_sk`), Swedish (`name_sv`), Thai (`name_th`), Ukranian (`name_uk`), Chinese simplified (`name_zh`), Chinese traditional (`name_zh-tw`)
GTAP | GTAP country and region codes.
all | Converts to all the nomenclatures and languages in this table

### Further options and warning messages

`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 alternative name formulations and old nomenclatures.

    fuzzy_example <- c("US","C@ète d^Ivoire","Zaire","FYROM","Estados Unidos","ITA","blablabla")

    country_name(x= fuzzy_example, to=c("UN_en"))
    #> Multiple country IDs have been matched to the same country name.
    #> There is low confidence on the matching of some country names, NA returned.
    #>
    #> Set - verbose - to TRUE for more details
    #> [1] "United States of America"         "Côte d’Ivoire"
    #> [3] "Democratic Republic of the Congo" "North Macedonia"
    #> [5] "United States of America"         "Italy"
    #> [7] NA

More information on the country matching process can be obtained by setting `verbose=TRUE`. The function will print information on:

- The number of unique values provided by the user. In the example below 7 distinct strings have been provided.
- How many country names correspond exactly to the ones in the function’s reference list and how many have been processed with fuzzy matching. In the example below, `"C@ète d^Ivoire"` and `"blablabla"` are the only names processed with fuzzy matching. The function’s reference table can be accessed with the command `data(country_reference_list)`. Finally, if any match is poor, the function will print the number of country names which are probably mismatched (in this example only `"blablabla"`).

    country_name(x= fuzzy_example, to=c("UN_en"), verbose=TRUE)
    #>
    #> In total 7 unique country names were provided
    #> 5/7 have been matched with EXACT matching
    #> 2/7 have been matched with FUZZY matching, out of which:
    #> 1/2 are a POOR match (likely wrongly identified)
    #>
    #>
    #> Multiple arguments have been matched to the same country name:
    #>   - Estados Unidos : United States of America
    #>   - US : United States of America
    #>
    #> No close match found for the following countries, NA returned:
    #> (set - poor_matches - to TRUE if you want the closest match to be returned or set - na_fill - to TRUE if you wish to fill the NAs with the original name supplied in - x)
    #>  - blablabla
    #> [1] "United States of America"         "Côte d’Ivoire"
    #> [3] "Democratic Republic of the Congo" "North Macedonia"
    #> [5] "United States of America"         "Italy"
    #> [7] NA

In addition, setting `verbose=TRUE` will also print additional informations relating to specific warnings that are normally given by the function:

- `Multiple country IDs have been matched to the same country name`: This warning is issued if multiple strings have been matched to the same country. In verbose mode, the strings and corresponding countries will be listed. In the example above, both `"US"` and `"Estados Unidos"` are matched to the same country. If the vector of country names is a unique identifier, this could indicate that some country name was not recognised correctly. The user might consider using custom tables (refer to the next section).
- `Unable to find an EXACT match for all country names`: indicates that it is impossible to find an exact match for one or more country names with `fuzzy_match=FALSE`. The user might consider using `fuzzy_match=TRUE` or custom tables (refer to the next section).
- `There is low confidence on the matching of some country names`: This warning indicates that some strings have been matched poorly. Thus indicating that the country might have been misidentified. In verbose mode the function will provide a list of problematic strings (see the example below). If `poor_matches` is set to `FALSE` (the default), the function will return `NA` for these uncertain string. On the other hand, if `poor_matches=TRUE` the function will always return the closest match, even if poor. The user might consider using custom tables to solve issues with misidentification of country names (refer to the next section). Alternatively, the user can set `na_fill=TRUE` to replace the resulting `NA`s with the original name provided in `x`.
- `Some country IDs have no match in one or more country naming conventions`: Conversion is requested to a nomenclature for which there is no information on the country. For instance, in the example below “Taiwan” has no correspondence in the UN M49 standard. In verbose mode, the function will print all the country names affected by this problem. The user might consider using custom tables to solve this type of issues (refer to the next section). Alternatively, the user can set `na_fill=TRUE` to replace the resulting `NA`s with the original name provided in `x`.

    country_name(x= c("Taiwan","lsajdèd"), to=c("UN_en"), verbose=FALSE)
    #> Some country IDs have no match in one or more of the requested country naming conventions, NA returned.
    #> There is low confidence on the matching of some country names, NA returned.
    #>
    #> Set - verbose - to TRUE for more details
    #> [1] NA NA

    country_name(x= c("Taiwan","lsajdèd"), to=c("UN_en"), verbose=FALSE, na_fill = TRUE)
    #> Some country IDs have no match in one or more of the requested country naming conventions, used original name to fill the NAs.
    #> There is low confidence on the matching of some country names, keeping the original names in - x.
    #>
    #> Set - verbose - to TRUE for more details
    #> [1] "Taiwan"  "lsajdèd"

All the information from verbose mode can be accessed by setting ´simplify=FALSE´. This will return a list object containing:

- `converted_data`: the normal output of the function
- `match_table`: the conversion table with information on the closest match for each country name and distance metrics.
- `summary`: summary values for the distance metrics
- `warning`: logical value indicating whether a warning is issued by the function
- `call`: the arguments passed by the user

## Using custom conversion tables

In some cases, the user might be unhappy with the naming conversion or no valid conversion might exist for the provided territory. In these cases, it might be useful to tweak the conversion table. The package contains a utility function called `match_table()`, which can be used to generate conversion tables for small adjustments.

    example_custom <- c("Siam","Burma","H#@°)Koe2")

    #suppose we are unhappy with how "H#@°)Koe2" is interpreted by the function
    country_name(x = example_custom, to = "name_en")
    #> There is low confidence on the matching of some country names, NA returned.
    #>
    #> Set - verbose - to TRUE for more details
    #> [1] "Thailand" "Myanmar"  NA

    #match_table can be used to generate a table for small adjustments
    tab <- match_table(x = example_custom, to = "name_en")
    #> There is low confidence on the matching of some country names, returning the closest match.
    tab$name_en[2] <- "Hong Kong"

    #which can then be used for conversion
    country_name(x = example_custom, to = "name_en", custom_table = tab)
    #> [1] "Thailand"  "Myanmar"   "Hong Kong"