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Convert and translate country names

Source: R/country_name.R
country_name.Rd

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,
  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".

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 matching is poor.

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")
#> [1] "GBR" "USA" "COD" "CIV"

#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"))
#>                                                  UN_en
#> 1 United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
#> 2                             United States of America
#> 3                     Democratic Republic of the Congo
#> 4                                        Côte d’Ivoire
#>                                                 UN_fr ISO3
#> 1 Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d’Irlande du Nord  GBR
#> 2                               États-Unis d’Amérique  USA
#> 3                    République démocratique du Congo  COD
#> 4                                       Côte d’Ivoire  CIV

#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")
#> [1] "<U+82F1><U+56FD>" "<U+7F8E><U+56FD>" "<U+521A><U+679C><U+6C11><U+4E3B><U+5171><U+548C><U+56FD>" "<U+79D1><U+7279><U+8FEA><U+74E6>"