Check if a country entered is one of the countries of the world

Question

Is there an automated way to check if a country name entered is one of the countries of the world in python (i.e., is there an automated way to get a list of all the countries of the world?)

Answer 1

You can use pycountry to get a list of all the countries:

pip install pycountry 

Or you can use this dictionary:

Country = [
    ('US', 'United States'),
    ('AF', 'Afghanistan'),
    ('AL', 'Albania'),
    ('DZ', 'Algeria'),
    ('AS', 'American Samoa'),
    ('AD', 'Andorra'),
    ('AO', 'Angola'),
    ('AI', 'Anguilla'),
    ('AQ', 'Antarctica'),
    ('AG', 'Antigua And Barbuda'),
    ('AR', 'Argentina'),
    ('AM', 'Armenia'),
    ('AW', 'Aruba'),
    ('AU', 'Australia'),
    ('AT', 'Austria'),
    ('AZ', 'Azerbaijan'),
    ('BS', 'Bahamas'),
    ('BH', 'Bahrain'),
    ('BD', 'Bangladesh'),
    ('BB', 'Barbados'),
    ('BY', 'Belarus'),
    ('BE', 'Belgium'),
    ('BZ', 'Belize'),
    ('BJ', 'Benin'),
    ('BM', 'Bermuda'),
    ('BT', 'Bhutan'),
    ('BO', 'Bolivia'),
    ('BA', 'Bosnia And Herzegowina'),
    ('BW', 'Botswana'),
    ('BV', 'Bouvet Island'),
    ('BR', 'Brazil'),
    ('BN', 'Brunei Darussalam'),
    ('BG', 'Bulgaria'),
    ('BF', 'Burkina Faso'),
    ('BI', 'Burundi'),
    ('KH', 'Cambodia'),
    ('CM', 'Cameroon'),
    ('CA', 'Canada'),
    ('CV', 'Cape Verde'),
    ('KY', 'Cayman Islands'),
    ('CF', 'Central African Rep'),
    ('TD', 'Chad'),
    ('CL', 'Chile'),
    ('CN', 'China'),
    ('CX', 'Christmas Island'),
    ('CC', 'Cocos Islands'),
    ('CO', 'Colombia'),
    ('KM', 'Comoros'),
    ('CG', 'Congo'),
    ('CK', 'Cook Islands'),
    ('CR', 'Costa Rica'),
    ('CI', 'Cote D`ivoire'),
    ('HR', 'Croatia'),
    ('CU', 'Cuba'),
    ('CY', 'Cyprus'),
    ('CZ', 'Czech Republic'),
    ('DK', 'Denmark'),
    ('DJ', 'Djibouti'),
    ('DM', 'Dominica'),
    ('DO', 'Dominican Republic'),
    ('TP', 'East Timor'),
    ('EC', 'Ecuador'),
    ('EG', 'Egypt'),
    ('SV', 'El Salvador'),
    ('GQ', 'Equatorial Guinea'),
    ('ER', 'Eritrea'),
    ('EE', 'Estonia'),
    ('ET', 'Ethiopia'),
    ('FK', 'Falkland Islands (Malvinas)'),
    ('FO', 'Faroe Islands'),
    ('FJ', 'Fiji'),
    ('FI', 'Finland'),
    ('FR', 'France'),
    ('GF', 'French Guiana'),
    ('PF', 'French Polynesia'),
    ('TF', 'French S. Territories'),
    ('GA', 'Gabon'),
    ('GM', 'Gambia'),
    ('GE', 'Georgia'),
    ('DE', 'Germany'),
    ('GH', 'Ghana'),
    ('GI', 'Gibraltar'),
    ('GR', 'Greece'),
    ('GL', 'Greenland'),
    ('GD', 'Grenada'),
    ('GP', 'Guadeloupe'),
    ('GU', 'Guam'),
    ('GT', 'Guatemala'),
    ('GN', 'Guinea'),
    ('GW', 'Guinea-bissau'),
    ('GY', 'Guyana'),
    ('HT', 'Haiti'),
    ('HN', 'Honduras'),
    ('HK', 'Hong Kong'),
    ('HU', 'Hungary'),
    ('IS', 'Iceland'),
    ('IN', 'India'),
    ('ID', 'Indonesia'),
    ('IR', 'Iran'),
    ('IQ', 'Iraq'),
    ('IE', 'Ireland'),
    ('IL', 'Israel'),
    ('IT', 'Italy'),
    ('JM', 'Jamaica'),
    ('JP', 'Japan'),
    ('JO', 'Jordan'),
    ('KZ', 'Kazakhstan'),
    ('KE', 'Kenya'),
    ('KI', 'Kiribati'),
    ('KP', 'Korea (North)'),
    ('KR', 'Korea (South)'),
    ('KW', 'Kuwait'),
    ('KG', 'Kyrgyzstan'),
    ('LA', 'Laos'),
    ('LV', 'Latvia'),
    ('LB', 'Lebanon'),
    ('LS', 'Lesotho'),
    ('LR', 'Liberia'),
    ('LY', 'Libya'),
    ('LI', 'Liechtenstein'),
    ('LT', 'Lithuania'),
    ('LU', 'Luxembourg'),
    ('MO', 'Macau'),
    ('MK', 'Macedonia'),
    ('MG', 'Madagascar'),
    ('MW', 'Malawi'),
    ('MY', 'Malaysia'),
    ('MV', 'Maldives'),
    ('ML', 'Mali'),
    ('MT', 'Malta'),
    ('MH', 'Marshall Islands'),
    ('MQ', 'Martinique'),
    ('MR', 'Mauritania'),
    ('MU', 'Mauritius'),
    ('YT', 'Mayotte'),
    ('MX', 'Mexico'),
    ('FM', 'Micronesia'),
    ('MD', 'Moldova'),
    ('MC', 'Monaco'),
    ('MN', 'Mongolia'),
    ('MS', 'Montserrat'),
    ('MA', 'Morocco'),
    ('MZ', 'Mozambique'),
    ('MM', 'Myanmar'),
    ('NA', 'Namibia'),
    ('NR', 'Nauru'),
    ('NP', 'Nepal'),
    ('NL', 'Netherlands'),
    ('AN', 'Netherlands Antilles'),
    ('NC', 'New Caledonia'),
    ('NZ', 'New Zealand'),
    ('NI', 'Nicaragua'),
    ('NE', 'Niger'),
    ('NG', 'Nigeria'),
    ('NU', 'Niue'),
    ('NF', 'Norfolk Island'),
    ('MP', 'Northern Mariana Islands'),
    ('NO', 'Norway'),
    ('OM', 'Oman'),
    ('PK', 'Pakistan'),
    ('PW', 'Palau'),
    ('PA', 'Panama'),
    ('PG', 'Papua New Guinea'),
    ('PY', 'Paraguay'),
    ('PE', 'Peru'),
    ('PH', 'Philippines'),
    ('PN', 'Pitcairn'),
    ('PL', 'Poland'),
    ('PT', 'Portugal'),
    ('PR', 'Puerto Rico'),
    ('QA', 'Qatar'),
    ('RE', 'Reunion'),
    ('RO', 'Romania'),
    ('RU', 'Russian Federation'),
    ('RW', 'Rwanda'),
    ('KN', 'Saint Kitts And Nevis'),
    ('LC', 'Saint Lucia'),
    ('VC', 'St Vincent/Grenadines'),
    ('WS', 'Samoa'),
    ('SM', 'San Marino'),
    ('ST', 'Sao Tome'),
    ('SA', 'Saudi Arabia'),
    ('SN', 'Senegal'),
    ('SC', 'Seychelles'),
    ('SL', 'Sierra Leone'),
    ('SG', 'Singapore'),
    ('SK', 'Slovakia'),
    ('SI', 'Slovenia'),
    ('SB', 'Solomon Islands'),
    ('SO', 'Somalia'),
    ('ZA', 'South Africa'),
    ('ES', 'Spain'),
    ('LK', 'Sri Lanka'),
    ('SH', 'St. Helena'),
    ('PM', 'St.Pierre'),
    ('SD', 'Sudan'),
    ('SR', 'Suriname'),
    ('SZ', 'Swaziland'),
    ('SE', 'Sweden'),
    ('CH', 'Switzerland'),
    ('SY', 'Syrian Arab Republic'),
    ('TW', 'Taiwan'),
    ('TJ', 'Tajikistan'),
    ('TZ', 'Tanzania'),
    ('TH', 'Thailand'),
    ('TG', 'Togo'),
    ('TK', 'Tokelau'),
    ('TO', 'Tonga'),
    ('TT', 'Trinidad And Tobago'),
    ('TN', 'Tunisia'),
    ('TR', 'Turkey'),
    ('TM', 'Turkmenistan'),
    ('TV', 'Tuvalu'),
    ('UG', 'Uganda'),
    ('UA', 'Ukraine'),
    ('AE', 'United Arab Emirates'),
    ('UK', 'United Kingdom'),
    ('UY', 'Uruguay'),
    ('UZ', 'Uzbekistan'),
    ('VU', 'Vanuatu'),
    ('VA', 'Vatican City State'),
    ('VE', 'Venezuela'),
    ('VN', 'Viet Nam'),
    ('VG', 'Virgin Islands (British)'),
    ('VI', 'Virgin Islands (U.S.)'),
    ('EH', 'Western Sahara'),
    ('YE', 'Yemen'),
    ('YU', 'Yugoslavia'),
    ('ZR', 'Zaire'),
    ('ZM', 'Zambia'),
    ('ZW', 'Zimbabwe')
]

Update 2021: The module has been updated including shortcomings mentioned by @JurajBezručka

Answer 2

I know this has been asked 8 months ago, but here is a pretty good solution in case you are coming from Google (just like me).

You can use the ISO standard library located here: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/iso3166/

This piece of code is taken from that link in case you get a 404 Error some time in the future:

Installation:

pip install iso3166

Country Details:

>>> from iso3166 import countries
>>> countries.get('us')
Country(name=u'United States', alpha2='US', alpha3='USA', numeric='840')
>>> countries.get('ala')
Country(name=u'\xc5land Islands', alpha2='AX', alpha3='ALA', numeric='248')
>>> countries.get(8)
Country(name=u'Albania', alpha2='AL', alpha3='ALB', numeric='008')

Countries List:

>>> from iso3166 import countries
>>> for c in countries:
>>>       print(c)
Country(name=u'Afghanistan', alpha2='AF', alpha3='AFG', numeric='004')
Country(name=u'\xc5land Islands', alpha2='AX', alpha3='ALA', numeric='248')
Country(name=u'Albania', alpha2='AL', alpha3='ALB', numeric='008')
Country(name=u'Algeria', alpha2='DZ', alpha3='DZA', numeric='012')
...

This package is compliant in case you want to follow the standardization proposed by ISO. According to Wikipedia:

ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states). The official name of the standard is Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions.

Hence, I strongly recommend using this library in all your apps in case you are working with Countries.

Hope this piece of data is useful for the community!

Answer 3

UPDATE

Although using pytz.country_names is convenient, it looks like pytz is on the way out (as of Python 3.9).

As an alternative, Python's (first-party) tzdata package provides an up-to-date list of ISO 3166 country codes and names.

To use the country names from tzdata, have a look at this example.

ORIGINAL

Chances are you've already got pytz installed in your project, e.g. if you're using Django.

Here's a note from the pytz documentation:

The Olson database comes with a ISO 3166 country code to English country name mapping that pytz exposes as a dictionary:

>>> print(pytz.country_names['nz'])

New Zealand

So, it may be convenient to use the pytz.country_names dictionary.

Not sure how up-to date that ISO 3166 table is, but at least pytz itself is well maintained, and it is currently (i.e. June 2020) in the top 20 "most downloaded past month" from PyPI, according to https://pypistats.org/top, so probably not a bad one to have, as far as external dependencies go.

Answer 4

Although this post is old and has been answered, I would still like to contribute my solution to the question asked:

I have written a function in Python which can be used to find out incorrect country names coming in a data set.

For example:

We have a list of country names which want to check to find out invalid country name:

['UNITED STATES OF AMERICA', 'UNISTED STATES OF AMERICA', 'UNITED KINGDOM', 'UNTED KINGDOM', 'GERMANY', 'MALAYSIA', .... ]

(Note : I have converted list elements into upper case for case insensitive comparison using my function) This List has incorrect/misspelled entries for country name like : Unisted States of America,Unted Kingdom.

To identify such anomalies I have written a function which can identify such invalid country names.

This function uses ‘pycountry’ library of Python which contains ISO country names.It provides two-alphabet country name,three-alphabet country name,name,common name,official name and numeric country code.

****Function Definition**:**

def country_name_check():
    pycntrylst = list(pc.countries)
    alpha_2 = []
    alpha_3 = []
    name = []
    common_name = []
    official_name = []
    invalid_countrynames =[]
    tobe_deleted = ['IRAN','SOUTH KOREA','NORTH KOREA','SUDAN','MACAU','REPUBLIC OF IRELAND']
    for i in pycntrylst:
        alpha_2.append(i.alpha_2)
        alpha_3.append(i.alpha_3)
        name.append(i.name)
        if hasattr(i, "common_name"):
            common_name.append(i.common_name)
        else:
            common_name.append("")
        if hasattr(i, "official_name"):
            official_name.append(i.official_name)
        else:
            official_name.append("")
    for j in input_country_list:
        if j not in map(str.upper,alpha_2) and j not in map(str.upper,alpha_3) and j not in map(str.upper,name) and j not in map(str.upper,common_name) and j not in map(str.upper,official_name):
            invalid_countrynames.append(j)
    invalid_countrynames = list(set(invalid_countrynames))
    invalid_countrynames = [item for item in invalid_countrynames if item not in tobe_deleted]
    return print(invalid_countrynames)

)

This function compares country name coming in the input list with each of the following provided by pycountry.countries:

alpha_2 : Two character country code

alpha_3 : Three character country code

name: Country name

common name : Common name for the country

official name : Official name for the country

Also, comparison is being done by converting each of the above attribute content into upper case since we have input country name list also in upper case.

Another thing to be noted here is that,I have created a list called ‘tobe_deleted’ in the function definition.This list contains of those countries for which we have different version of name in pycountry and therefore we do not want these countries to appear as invalid country names when our function is called.

Example:

1. MACAU is also spelled as MACAO,therefore both the sames are valid.However,pycountry.countries has only one entry with spelling as MACAO.country_name_check() can handle both MACAO and MACAU.

2. Similarly, pycountry.countries has entry for IRELAND with name=’Ireland’.However,it is also sometimes referred as ‘Republic of Ireland’.country_name_check() can handle both ‘Ireland’ and ‘Republic of Ireland’ in input data set.

I hope this function helps all the people who might have faced issues with handling invalid country names in data sets at any point during data analysis.Thanks for reading my post and any suggestions and feedback are welcome to improve this function.

Answer 5

You can use pycountry to get list of all countries with many other options just follow the steps:

pip install pycountry

import pycountry

def get_countries():
    for x in pycountry.countries:
        x.alpha_3 +'  --   '+x.name

It will print country sort code with country name.

It has other fields you can check it by

help(pycountry.countries)

Answer 6

You can do it like:

import requests

req = requests.get('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Miguel-Frazao/world-data/master/countries_data.json').json()
countries = (i['name'] for i in req)
print(list(countries))

You can save them to a file so you don't have to do requests all the time, or just copy and paste into your code.

Then, to check if the country exists you can do:

...
country = input('Insert a country')
if country not in countries:
    print('nice try, but invalid')
else:
    print('yooo, your country is {}'.format(country))

You have more data about each country in case you need it, you can check it in the link that is being requested in the code

Answer 7

This is a crude start that uses the country names gleaned from https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#search. The country names still contain some tricky cases. For instance, this code recognises 'Samoa' but its not really 'seeing' 'American Samoa'.

class Countries:
    def __init__(self):
        self.__countries = ['afghanistan', 'aland islands', 'albania', 'algeria', 'american samoa', 'andorra', 'angola', 'anguilla', 'antarctica', 'antigua and barbuda', 'argentina', 'armenia', 'aruba', 'australia', 'austria', 'azerbaijan', 'bahamas (the)', 'bahrain', 'bangladesh', 'barbados', 'belarus', 'belgium', 'belize', 'benin', 'bermuda', 'bhutan', 'bolivia (plurinational state of)', 'bonaire, sint eustatius and saba', 'bosnia and herzegovina', 'botswana', 'bouvet island', 'brazil', 'british indian ocean territory (the)', 'brunei darussalam', 'bulgaria', 'burkina faso', 'burundi', 'cabo verde', 'cambodia', 'cameroon', 'canada', 'cayman islands (the)', 'central african republic (the)', 'chad', 'chile', 'china', 'christmas island', 'cocos (keeling) islands (the)', 'colombia', 'comoros (the)', 'congo (the democratic republic of the)', 'congo (the)', 'cook islands (the)', 'costa rica', "cote d'ivoire", 'croatia', 'cuba', 'curacao', 'cyprus', 'czechia', 'denmark', 'djibouti', 'dominica', 'dominican republic (the)', 'ecuador', 'egypt', 'el salvador', 'equatorial guinea', 'eritrea', 'estonia', 'ethiopia', 'falkland islands (the) [malvinas]', 'faroe islands (the)', 'fiji', 'finland', 'france', 'french guiana', 'french polynesia', 'french southern territories (the)', 'gabon', 'gambia (the)', 'georgia', 'germany', 'ghana', 'gibraltar', 'greece', 'greenland', 'grenada', 'guadeloupe', 'guam', 'guatemala', 'guernsey', 'guinea', 'guinea-bissau', 'guyana', 'haiti', 'heard island and mcdonald islands', 'holy see (the)', 'honduras', 'hong kong', 'hungary', 'iceland', 'india', 'indonesia', 'iran (islamic republic of)', 'iraq', 'ireland', 'isle of man', 'israel', 'italy', 'jamaica', 'japan', 'jersey', 'jordan', 'kazakhstan', 'kenya', 'kiribati', "korea (the democratic people's republic of)", 'korea (the republic of)', 'kuwait', 'kyrgyzstan', "lao people's democratic republic (the)", 'latvia', 'lebanon', 'lesotho', 'liberia', 'libya', 'liechtenstein', 'lithuania', 'luxembourg', 'macao', 'macedonia (the former yugoslav republic of)', 'madagascar', 'malawi', 'malaysia', 'maldives', 'mali', 'malta', 'marshall islands (the)', 'martinique', 'mauritania', 'mauritius', 'mayotte', 'mexico', 'micronesia (federated states of)', 'moldova (the republic of)', 'monaco', 'mongolia', 'montenegro', 'montserrat', 'morocco', 'mozambique', 'myanmar', 'namibia', 'nauru', 'nepal', 'netherlands (the)', 'new caledonia', 'new zealand', 'nicaragua', 'niger (the)', 'nigeria', 'niue', 'norfolk island', 'northern mariana islands (the)', 'norway', 'oman', 'pakistan', 'palau', 'palestine, state of', 'panama', 'papua new guinea', 'paraguay', 'peru', 'philippines (the)', 'pitcairn', 'poland', 'portugal', 'puerto rico', 'qatar', 'reunion', 'romania', 'russian federation (the)', 'rwanda', 'saint barthelemy', 'saint helena, ascension and tristan da cunha', 'saint kitts and nevis', 'saint lucia', 'saint martin (french part)', 'saint pierre and miquelon', 'saint vincent and the grenadines', 'samoa', 'san marino', 'sao tome and principe', 'saudi arabia', 'senegal', 'serbia', 'seychelles', 'sierra leone', 'singapore', 'sint maarten (dutch part)', 'slovakia', 'slovenia', 'solomon islands', 'somalia', 'south africa', 'south georgia and the south sandwich islands', 'south sudan', 'spain', 'sri lanka', 'sudan (the)', 'suriname', 'svalbard and jan mayen', 'swaziland', 'sweden', 'switzerland', 'syrian arab republic', 'taiwan (province of china)', 'tajikistan', 'tanzania, united republic of', 'thailand', 'timor-leste', 'togo', 'tokelau', 'tonga', 'trinidad and tobago', 'tunisia', 'turkey', 'turkmenistan', 'turks and caicos islands (the)', 'tuvalu', 'uganda', 'ukraine', 'united arab emirates (the)', 'united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland (the)', 'united states minor outlying islands (the)', 'united states of america (the)', 'uruguay', 'uzbekistan', 'vanuatu', 'venezuela (bolivarian republic of)', 'viet nam', 'virgin islands (british)', 'virgin islands (u.s.)', 'wallis and futuna', 'western sahara*', 'yemen', 'zambia', 'zimbabwe']

    def __call__(self, name, strict=3):
        result = False
        name = name.lower()
        if strict==3:
            for country in self.__countries:
                if country==name:
                    return True
            else:
                return result
        elif strict==2:
            for country in self.__countries:
                if name in country:
                    return True
            else:
                return result
        elif strict==1:
            for country in self.__countries:
                if country.startswith(name):
                    return True
            else:
                return result
        else:
            return result

countries = Countries()
print (countries('germany'))
print (countries('russia'))
print (countries('russia', strict=2))
print (countries('russia', strict=1))
print (countries('samoa', strict=2))
print (countries('samoa', strict=1))

Here are the results:

True
False
True
True
True
True

Answer 8

Old question but since it came up during my search and no one provided this alternative I'll add it.

https://github.com/SteinRobert/python-restcountries is a python wrapper for the REST service https://restcountries.eu/.

the wrapper seems to be maintained (was recently updated to python 3) and the REST service is maintained by apilayer so it should be up to date.

pip install python-restcountries

from restcountries import RestCountryApiV2 as rapi def foo(name): country_list = rapi.get_countries_by_name('France')

Answer 9

If you need to check whether a given string is a country in the world, previous commenters suggested using pycountry. However, pycountry is known for being slow and only supports English country names. For a more efficient solution, you might want to consider using countrywrangler, which uses a performance-optimized approach and supports search in 34 languages, including both official and common country names.

countrywrangler includes a fuzzy search feature that is faster than pycountry's regular lookup, but still about 100 times slower than its normal search function. The fuzzy search functionality is able to detect almost all countries, regardless of variations in formatting styles or spelling errors. However, for most use cases, the normal search function of countrywrangler is sufficient.

Here is an example use case for checking whether a given string represents a country without using the fuzzy search feature:

import countrywrangler as cw

alpha2 = cw.Normalize.name_to_alpha2("Germany")
print(alpha2)

>>> DE

And one with fuzzy search turned on:

import countrywrangler as cw

alpha2 = cw.Normalize.name_to_alpha2("Federal Republic of Germany", use_fuzzy=True)
print(alpha2)

>>> DE

When countrywrangler is unable to find a match for the given string, it automatically returns None. If the objective is solely to determine whether the given string represents a country, the following code can be utilized:

import countrywrangler as cw

if cw.Normalize.name_to_alpha2("Germany"):
   print(True)
else:
   print(False)

countrywrangler can be installed using the following pip command:

pip install countrywrangler

The full documentation can be found here: https://countrywrangler.readthedocs.io/en/latest/normalize/country_name/

Disclosure: I am the author of CountryWrangler. While pycountry is primarily designed to serve as a database for ISO standards, countrywrangler is specifically developed to normalize country data. Both libraries cater to their respective use cases.