<title>Natural Earth » Blog Archive » Admin 0 – Countries - Free vector and raster map data at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110m scales </title>
<divstyle="float: left; width: 410px;"><em>There are <b>258 countries</b> in the world. Greenland as separate from Denmark. Most users will want this file instead of sovereign states, though some users will want map units instead when needing to distinguish overseas regions of France.</em></div>
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<p><em>Natural Earth shows <ahref="https://www.naturalearthdata.com/about/disputed-boundaries-policy/"><b>de facto</b></a> boundaries by default according to who controls the territory, versus <i>de jure</i>. Optional point-of-view (POV) variants are available for several dozen countries in the next section.</em> </p>
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<p>Countries distinguish between metropolitan (homeland) and independent and semi-independent portions of sovereign states. If you want to see the dependent overseas regions broken out (like in ISO codes, see France for example), use <ahref="https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-political-vectors/10m-admin-0-details/">map units</a> instead.</p>
<p>Each country is coded with a world region that roughly follows the <ahref="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm">United Nations setup</a>.</p>
<p>Countries are coded with standard ISO and FIPS codes. French <ahref="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INSEE">INSEE codes</a> are also included.</p>
<p>Includes some thematic data from the United Nations (<ahref="http://data.un.org/DataMartInfo.aspx">1</a>), U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Natural Earth Vector draws boundaries of countries according to defacto status. We show who actually controls the situation on the ground. Please feel free to mashup our <ahref="https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-cultural-vectors/10m-admin-0-breakaway-disputed-areas/">disputed area themes</a> to match your particular political outlook.</p>
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<p><ahref="https://github.com/nvkelso/natural-earth-vector/blob/master/CHANGELOG">The master changelog is available on Github »</a></p>
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