BEAM Lab Countries

BeamLabCountries is a collection of all sorts of useful information for every country in the ISO 3166 standard. It includes country data, subdivisions (states/provinces), international organizations, language information, and country name translations.

It is based on the data from the pretty popular but abandoned Elixir library Countries and previously the Ruby Gem Countries.

Installation

defp deps do
  [
    {:beamlab_countries, "~> 2.0"}
  ]
end

After you are done, run mix deps.get in your shell to fetch and compile beamlab_countries.

Documentation

Full documentation is available at HexDocs.

BeamLabCountries - Main country API
BeamLabCountries.Unions - International organizations
BeamLabCountries.Languages - Languages and locales
BeamLabCountries.Translations - Country name translations
BeamLabCountries.Subdivisions - States/provinces
BeamLabCountries.Cities - Major cities

Usage

Countries

Get all countries:

countries = BeamLabCountries.all()
Enum.count(countries)
# 250

Get a single country by alpha2 or alpha3 code:

country = BeamLabCountries.get("PL")
# %BeamLabCountries.Country{name: "Poland", alpha2: "PL", alpha3: "POL", ...}

country = BeamLabCountries.get_by_alpha3("DEU")
# %BeamLabCountries.Country{name: "Germany", alpha2: "DE", alpha3: "DEU", ...}

Filter countries by attribute:

# By region
countries = BeamLabCountries.filter_by(:region, "Europe")
Enum.count(countries)
# 51

# By currency
eurozone = BeamLabCountries.filter_by(:currency_code, "EUR")

# By continent
asian_countries = BeamLabCountries.filter_by(:continent, "Asia")

# By EU membership
eu_countries = BeamLabCountries.filter_by(:eu_member, true)

# By language (countries where English is spoken)
english_speaking = BeamLabCountries.filter_by(:languages_spoken, "en")
Enum.count(english_speaking)
# 168

Time zones are IANA identifiers, and can be filtered like any other attribute:

BeamLabCountries.get("EE").timezones
# ["Europe/Tallinn"]

BeamLabCountries.get("US").timezones |> length()
# 29

BeamLabCountries.get_by(:timezones, "Europe/Tallinn").alpha2
# "EE"

eu_member and eea_member are always booleans, so non-members can be filtered with filter_by(:eu_member, false). Lookups return nil for unknown or non-string codes, while filter_by/1,2, get_by/2 and exists?/2 raise ArgumentError for attributes that are not fields of BeamLabCountries.Country:

BeamLabCountries.get(nil)
# nil

BeamLabCountries.filter_by(:regoin, "Europe")
# ** (ArgumentError) unknown country attribute: :regoin, expected one of: ...

Check if a country exists:

BeamLabCountries.exists?(:name, "Poland")
# true

BeamLabCountries.exists?(:alpha2, "XX")
# false

Subdivisions

Get subdivisions (states, provinces, regions) for a country:

country = BeamLabCountries.get("BR")
subdivisions = BeamLabCountries.Subdivisions.all(country)
Enum.count(subdivisions)
# 27

# Each subdivision includes id, name, translations, and geo data
hd(subdivisions)
# %BeamLabCountries.Subdivision{id: "AC", name: "Acre", ...}

Cities

Up to ten major cities for each of 244 countries and territories, plus the capital when identified by GeoNames, with coordinates, time zones and names in 23 languages. for_country/2 returns those ten largest places and still includes the capital when it ranks lower. All 50 US states and all 13 Canadian provinces and territories have at least ten populated places, including smaller towns and villages where needed.

Populations and translations follow GeoNames and can be incomplete or outdated. name uses the preferred English name when available, otherwise the primary GeoNames name. get_name/2 falls back to name; English locales always return name.

alias BeamLabCountries.Cities

Cities.capital("AT").name
# "Vienna"

Cities.for_country("DE") |> Enum.map(& &1.name) |> Enum.take(4)
# ["Berlin", "Hamburg", "Munich", "Cologne"]

Cities.for_country("US") |> length()
# 11 (the 10 largest cities, plus Washington D.C.)

Cities.for_country("US", limit: :all) |> length()
# 501 (every state, plus Washington D.C.)

Cities.for_subdivision("US", "CA", limit: 5) |> Enum.map(& &1.name)
# ["Los Angeles", "San Diego", "San Jose", "San Francisco", "Fresno"]

Cities.for_subdivision("CA", "ON", limit: 2) |> Enum.map(& &1.name)
# ["Toronto", "Ottawa"]

Cities.for_subdivision("CA", "PE", limit: 10) |> length()
# 10 (every Canadian province and territory has at least ten entries)

# Names differ by language: English, native and translated
vienna = Cities.capital("AT")
{vienna.name, vienna.native_name}
# {"Vienna", "Wien"}

Cities.get_name(vienna, "fr")
# "Vienne"

Cities.get_name(Cities.capital("CZ"), "de")
# "Prag"

# GeoNames ID lookup
Cities.get(2761369).population
# 1691468

City data comes from GeoNames, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

International Organizations (Unions)

Query international organizations and their member countries:

alias BeamLabCountries.Unions

# Get all unions
Unions.all()
# Returns 29 unions: EU, EEA, EFTA, NATO, G7, G20, APEC, ASEAN, Mercosur, USMCA, African Union,
# OPEC, OECD, BRICS, CIS, OIC, Pacific Alliance, Commonwealth, Arab League, GCC, Schengen,
# Eurozone, SCO, CARICOM, ECOWAS, SADC, EAC, Council of Europe and CPTPP

# Get a specific union
eu = Unions.get("eu")
# %BeamLabCountries.Union{code: "eu", name: "European Union", type: :economic_political, ...}

# Check union membership
Unions.member?("DE", "eu")
# true

Unions.member?("US", "nato")
# true

# Get all unions a country belongs to
Unions.for_country("DE")
# [%Union{code: "eu", ...}, %Union{code: "nato", ...}, %Union{code: "g7", ...}, ...]

Unions.codes_for_country("DE")
# ["eu", "eea", "nato", "g7", "g20", "oecd"]

# Get all member countries of a union
eu_countries = Unions.member_countries("eu")
Enum.count(eu_countries)
# 27

# Filter unions by type
military_unions = Unions.filter_by(:type, :military)
# [%Union{code: "nato", name: "North Atlantic Treaty Organization", ...}]

Languages

Look up language information by ISO 639-1 code:

alias BeamLabCountries.Languages

# Get language name
Languages.get_name("de")
# "German"

Languages.get_name("ja")
# "Japanese"

# Get native language name
Languages.get_native_name("de")
# "Deutsch"

Languages.get_native_name("zh")
# "中文 (Zhōngwén), 汉语, 漢語"

# Get full language info as struct
Languages.get("fr")
# %BeamLabCountries.Language{code: "fr", name: "French", native_name: "Français", family: "Indo-European"}

# Get all languages
Languages.all()
# [%Language{code: "aa", name: "Afar", ...}, ...]

Languages.count()
# 184

# Check if a language code is valid
Languages.valid?("en")
# true

Locales

Work with regional language variants (e.g., "en-US", "es-MX", "pt-BR"):

alias BeamLabCountries.Languages

# Get a locale with full details including flag and country name
locale = Languages.get_locale("en-US")
# %BeamLabCountries.Locale{
#   code: "en-US",
#   base_code: "en",
#   region_code: "US",
#   name: "English (United States)",
#   native_name: "English (US)",
#   flag: "🇺🇸",
#   country_name: "United States of America"
# }

# Get all locales
Languages.all_locales()
# Returns 140 locales sorted by name

Languages.locale_count()
# 140

# Get all regional variants for a language
Languages.locales_for_language("en")
# [%Locale{code: "en-AU", ...}, %Locale{code: "en-CA", ...}, %Locale{code: "en-GB", ...}, %Locale{code: "en-US", ...}]

Languages.locales_for_language("es")
# [%Locale{code: "es-AR", ...}, %Locale{code: "es-ES", ...}, %Locale{code: "es-MX", ...}, ...]

# Parse a locale code
Languages.parse_locale("pt-BR")
# {"pt", "BR"}

# Check if a locale is valid
Languages.valid_locale?("en-US")
# true

Country-Language Associations

Find countries where a language is spoken:

alias BeamLabCountries.Languages

# Get all countries where English is spoken
countries = Languages.countries_for_language("en")
length(countries)
# 168

# Get just the country names
Languages.country_names_for_language("es")
# ["Argentina", "Bolivia", "Chile", "Colombia", "Costa Rica", "Cuba", ...]

# Get flags for countries where a language is spoken
Languages.flags_for_language("fr")
# ["🇧🇪", "🇧🇫", "🇧🇮", "🇧🇯", "🇨🇦", "🇨🇩", "🇨🇫", "🇨🇬", "🇨🇭", "🇨🇮", "🇨🇲", "🇫🇷", ...]

Country Name Translations

Get country names in different languages:

alias BeamLabCountries.Translations

# Get country name in a specific language
Translations.get_name("DE", "fr")
# "Allemagne"

Translations.get_name("JP", "de")
# "Japan"

Translations.get_name("US", "zh")
# "美国"

Translations.get_name("FR", "ar")
# "فرنسا"

# Regional locales are reduced to their language, and a fallback can be given
Translations.get_name("AT", "de-AT")
# "Österreich"

Translations.get_name("AT", "xx", fallback: "en")
# "Austria"

# Get country name in all supported languages
Translations.get_all_names("IT")
# %{"ar" => "إيطاليا", "de" => "Italien", "en" => "Italy", "es" => "Italia",
#   "fr" => "Italie", "ja" => "イタリア", "ko" => "이탈리아", ...}

# Check supported locales
Translations.supported_locales()
# ["ar", "cs", "de", "en", "es", "et", "fr", "hi", "id", "it", "ja", "ko", "nl", "pl", "pt",
#  "ro", "ru", "sv", "th", "tr", "uk", "vi", "zh"]

Translations.locale_supported?("ja")
# true

Contributing

Fork it
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create new Pull Request

Copyright and License

This software is licensed under the MIT license.

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