Convert standardized country codes to country names

Source: R/as_country_name.R

as_country_name converts a vector of standardized country codes to country names.

as_country_name(
  x,
  to = "en",
  from = "iso2c",
  short = TRUE,
  variant = FALSE,
  factor = is.factor(x)
)

Arguments

x

A character, factor, or numeric vector of country codes or names
to

Language code of country names desired. Defaults to "en"; see codes for more options.
from

Code format from which to convert. Defaults to "iso2c"; see codes for more options.
short

Whether to use short alternative name when available. Can be length 1 or the same length as x.
variant

Whether to use variant alternative name when available. Can be length 1 or the same length as x.
factor

If TRUE, returns factor instead of character vector. If not supplied, defaults to is.factor(x)

Value

A character or factor vector of country names. Warns if new NA values are added.

Details

as_country_name takes a character, factor, or numeric vector of country codes (or names in another standardized format) and converts them to country names in the specified format. If you are trying to standardize an existing set of names, see parse_country().

The default "en" is from Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR), which aspires to use the most customary name e.g. "Switzerland" instead of official ones, which are frequently awkward for common usage, e.g. "Swiss Confederation". CLDR also supplies names in a huge variety of languages, allowing for easy translation. Short and variant alternates are available for some countries; if not, the function will fall back to the standard form. See LICENSE file for terms of use.

Other name sets are available from

  • the UN Statistics Division(UNSD), which maintains standardized names in English, Chinese, Russian, French, Spanish, and Arabic, here named as "en_un" etc.

  • the ISO, "en_iso" and "fr_iso", and

  • the CIA World Factbook:

    • "en_cia", which include many longer official forms and shorter practical forms,

    • "en_cia_local", which includes transliterations, and

    • "en_cia_abbreviation", which includes commonly-used abbreviations.

See codes for all options, or run DT::datatable(codes) for a searchable widget.

See also

For converting standardized names to codes, use as_country_code(). For standardizing names to codes, use parse_country().

Examples

# Usable names for tough-to-standardize places
as_country_name(c("US", "TW", "MM", "XK", "KR"))

#> [1] "US"          "Taiwan"      "Myanmar"     "Kosovo"      "South Korea"

# If passed a factor, will return a releveled one
as_country_name(factor(c("US", "NF", "CD", "SJ")), short = FALSE, variant = TRUE)

#> [1] United States        Norfolk Island       Congo (DRC)         
#> [4] Svalbard & Jan Mayen
#> Levels: Congo (DRC) Norfolk Island Svalbard & Jan Mayen United States

# Speaks a lot of languages, knows a lot of codes
as_country_name(c("SAH", "PCN", "OMA", "JPN"), from = "fifa", to = "cy")    # to Welsh

#> [1] "Gorllewin Sahara"  "Ynysoedd Pitcairn" "Oman"             
#> [4] "Japan"