increase definition of Europe to be more inclusive

[qgroom]

Increase definition of Europe to those countries in the European Political Community + Monaco, Andorra, San Marino and the Vatican City

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Supranational_European_Bodies.svg

[DavidFichtmueller]

Since the last EPC meeting in the beginning of June, Monaco, Andorra and San Marino are part of the EPC, so the graphic is a bit outdated, but is has already been marked accordingly on the corresponding Commons page.

Here is the code block to be inserted into the notebook:

    # The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes for the countries in the European Political Community (EPC) 
    # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Political_Community
    epc_codes = ["AL", "AD", "AM", "AT", "AZ", "BE", "BA", "BG", "HR", "CY", "CZ", "DK", "EE", "FI",
                 "FR", "GE", "DE", "GR", "HU", "IS", "IE", "IT", "LV", "LI", "LT", "LU", "MT", "MD", 
                 "MC", "ME", "NL", "MK", "NO", "PL", "PT", "RO", "SM", "RS", "SK", "SI", "ES", "SE", 
                 "CH", "TR", "UA", "GB",
                 "XK" #temporary ISO code for Kosovo, used by the European Commsion and others: 
                      # https://geonames.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/xk-country-code-for-kosovo/
                 "VA" # Vatican City, not part of the EPC 
                 ]

I would suggest to still leave the EU block in there and only switch out the variable name which set should be used, so the analysis can easily be rerun on the set of EU countries, if this is requested.

[DavidFichtmueller]

Small update: I added the dependencies/territories of European countries that themselves are in Europe (thus no French Guyana or Antarctic territories or Caribbean dependencies).

    # The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes for the countries in the European Political Community (EPC) 
    # https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Political_Community
    epc_codes = ["AL", "AD", "AM", "AT", "AZ", "BE", "BA", "BG", "HR", "CY", "CZ", "DK", "EE", "FI",
                 "FR", "GE", "DE", "GR", "HU", "IS", "IE", "IT", "LV", "LI", "LT", "LU", "MT", "MD", 
                 "MC", "ME", "NL", "MK", "NO", "PL", "PT", "RO", "SM", "RS", "SK", "SI", "ES", "SE", 
                 "CH", "TR", "UA", "GB",
                 "XK", #temporary ISO code for Kosovo, used by the European Commsion and others (incl GBIF): 
                      # https://geonames.wordpress.com/2010/03/08/xk-country-code-for-kosovo/
                 "VA", # Vatican City, not part of the EPC 
                 # dependencies
                 "GG", #Guernsey
                 "JE", #Jersey
                 "IM", #Isle of Man
                 "GI", #Gibraltar
                 "SJ", #Svalbard and Jan Mayen
                 "AX", #Åland
                 "FO" #Faroe Islands
                 ]

[melanie-de-nolf]

Thank you for the updated list, David!

Shouldn't we include Belarus as well? It's not in the European Political Community, but it probably makes more sense for taxonomy to see it as part of Europe, geographically/biologically. Too bad we can't distinguish between Eastern and Western Russia, otherwise we could just include everything on the chart...

[qgroom]

@melanie-de-nolf @DavidFichtmueller

Can this issue be resolved? I'm not keen to include Belarus and I think we have covered all other geographic issues