Geography reference data
Countries, capitals, landforms, and climate.
Topic guide
What Geography covers
Geography reference data answers the lookups people and agents repeat most: which countries are on a continent, what their capitals are, and how big the continents are. The data is organized by continent and lists sovereign states, mostly the member states of the United Nations, each with its capital city. Capitals look like the simplest possible facts, but some states have more than one seat of government, some capitals are disputed or contested, and the boundary between continents is a convention, so a few entries carry a note rather than a single name.
Key ideas
- Sovereign state
- A political entity with a permanent population, defined territory, government and capacity to enter relations with others. Most are UN member states.
- Capital
- The city that is the seat of a national government. Some countries split the executive, legislative and judicial functions across several cities.
- Continent
- A very large landmass or conventional division of one. The number of continents (five to seven) depends on the model used.
- Transcontinental country
- A state with territory on more than one continent, such as Turkey, Russia, Egypt and Kazakhstan. Listing depends on convention.
- Observer state
- A state that participates in the UN without being a full member, such as the Holy See (Vatican City) and Palestine.
- Exonym vs endonym
- The name outsiders use for a place versus the name its people use. Examples: Kyiv versus Kiev, Czechia versus Czech Republic.
- Area and population
- Continental figures change with estimates and with whether islands and regions are counted; they are approximations.
Common pitfalls
- Assuming each country has exactly one capital. South Africa, Bolivia, Eswatini and the Netherlands split government functions across cities.
- Treating continents as fixed categories; Europe and Asia, North and South America and Oceania are drawn differently in different traditions.
- Using outdated names after a change (for example Eswatini formerly Swaziland, Cabo Verde, Czechia, North Macedonia).
- Presenting disputed or contested status (for example Israel's capital, Taiwan, Kosovo) as settled; describe the dispute neutrally.
Using it from an agent
- When a country has more than one capital or a contested one, give both facts and say which function each city holds.
- State which standard a country list follows (here, mainly UN members) and say when a territory is not covered.
- Population and area figures are approximations; give them with an 'about' and a reference year if asked for precision.
Start with: World Continents · Countries and Capitals of Europe
Datasets in Geography
-
Countries and Capitals of Africa
Selected countries and capitals of Africa.
54 entries -
Countries and Capitals of Asia
Selected countries and capitals of Asia.
47 entries -
Countries and Capitals of Europe
Selected countries and capitals of Europe.
44 entries -
Countries and Capitals of the Americas
Selected countries and capitals in North and South America.
35 entries -
World Continents
The seven continents with approximate area and population.
7 entries
Fetch this category
One request returns the category with all of its dataset summaries. Append
?format=yaml or ?format=toon for the other encodings.
GET https://yjtoon.com/api/category/geography?format=json