world_merc
==========

'world_merc.shp' is a version of TM_WORLD_BORDERS_SIMPL-0.3.shp
downloaded from http://thematicmapping.org/downloads/world_borders.php.

Coodinates near 180 degress longitude were clipped to faciliate reprojection
to Google mercator (EPSG:900913).

Details from original readme are below:

-------------

TM_WORLD_BORDERS-0.1.ZIP 

Provided by Bjorn Sandvik, thematicmapping.org

Use this dataset with care, as several of the borders are disputed.

The original shapefile (world_borders.zip, 3.2 MB) was downloaded from the Mapping Hacks website:
http://www.mappinghacks.com/data/

The dataset was derived by Schuyler Erle from public domain sources.
Sean Gilles did some clean up and made some enhancements.


COLUMN		TYPE			DESCRIPTION

Shape		Polygon			Country/area border as polygon(s)
FIPS		String(2)		FIPS 10-4 Country Code
ISO2		String(2)		ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 Country Code
ISO3		String(3)		ISO 3166-1 Alpha-3 Country Code
UN		Short Integer(3)	ISO 3166-1 Numeric-3 Country Code 
NAME		String(50)		Name of country/area
AREA		Long Integer(7)		Land area, FAO Statistics (2002) 
POP2005		Double(10,0)	 	Population, World Polulation Prospects (2005)
REGION		Short Integer(3) 	Macro geographical (continental region), UN Statistics
SUBREGION	Short Integer(3)	Geogrpahical sub-region, UN Statistics
LON		FLOAT (7,3)		Longitude
LAT		FLOAT (6,3)		Latitude


CHANGELOG VERSION 0.3 - 30 July 2008

- Corrected spelling mistake (United Arab Emirates)
- Corrected population number for Japan
- Adjusted long/lat values for India, Italy and United Kingdom


CHANGELOG VERSION 0.2 - 1 April 2008

- Made new ZIP archieves. No change in dataset.


CHANGELOG VERSION 0.1 - 13 March 2008

- Polygons representing each country were merged into one feature
- ≈land Islands was extracted from Finland
- Hong Kong was extracted from China
- Holy See (Vatican City) was added
- Gaza Strip and West Bank was merged into "Occupied Palestinean Territory"
- Saint-Barthelemy was extracted from Netherlands Antilles
- Saint-Martin (Frensh part) was extracted from Guadeloupe
- Svalbard and Jan Mayen was merged into "Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands"
- Timor-Leste was extracted from Indonesia
- Juan De Nova Island was merged with "French Southern & Antarctic Land"
- Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Johnston Atoll, Midway Islands
  and Wake Island was merged into "United States Minor Outlying Islands"
- Glorioso Islands, Parcel Islands, Spartly Islands was removed 
  (almost uninhabited and missing ISO-3611-1 code)

- Added ISO-3166-1 codes (alpha-2, alpha-3, numeric-3). Source:
  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/appendix/appendix-d.html
  http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49alpha.htm
  http://www.fysh.org/~katie/development/geography.txt
- AREA column has been replaced with data from UNdata:
  Land area, 1000 hectares, 2002, FAO Statistics
- POPULATION column (POP2005) has been replaced with data from UNdata:
  Population, 2005, Medium variant, World Population Prospects: The 2006 Revision
- Added region and sub-region codes from UN Statistics Division. Source:
  http://unstats.un.org/unsd/methods/m49/m49regin.htm
- Added LAT, LONG values for each country



