Add alternative country names

[dmythro]

Let's work on a discussion started in #31: some countries have the main and alternative names and it's nice to cover this information in a proper way.

List, based on comments below:

• Belarus, Republic of Belarus
• Belgium, Kingdom of Belgium; Native names (in local official languages):
  • Belgique, Royaume de Belgique (French)
  • België, Koninkrijk België (Dutch)
  • Belgien, Königreich Belgien (German)
• Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus
  • Κύπρος, Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία (Greek)
  • Kıbrıs, Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti (Turkish)
• Myanmar, Burma
• Poland, Republic of Poland
• Russia, Russian Federation
• United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Britain, UK
• United States of America, United States, America, US

[jbelien]

• Myanmar ; Burma
• Belgium ; Kingdom of Belgium
  Native names (in local official languages):
  • Belgique ; Royaume de Belgique (French)
  • België ; Koninkrijk België (Dutch)
  • Belgien ; Königreich Belgien (German)

[dmythro]

Native name is now a string. To keep the support, we should use a comma-separated string for now (and probably make it array in future releases): "Belgique, België, Belgien". By the way, why now it is only one? Is there main locale among those three?

[jbelien]

I'm okay with comma-separated string 👍

No idea why at the moment there is only the Dutch name but that's just well ... wrong. The 3 official languages are at the same level :)

[dmythro]

Looks like a lot of countries have official names which differ from common usage :) Bad news is: should probably check each country at least on Wikipedia to do the job.

Probably, it also may make sense to have official name property if it differs from the main name. And alternative as array or comma-separated string.

Here are some I could remember and checked:

• Belarus, Republic of Belarus
• Cyprus, Republic of Cyprus
• Poland, Republic of Poland
• Russia, Russian Federation
• United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Britain, UK
• United States of America, United States, America, US

[dmythro]

Updating the list in the description, in alphabetical order.

[jbelien]

First draft of the list seems good to me ! 👍

[dmythro]

Maybe, we could add native names in certain languages like "native_fr": "Belgique, Royaume de Belgique"? And original "native" to contain all of them concatenated: "native": "Belgique, Royaume de Belgique, België, Koninkrijk België ...".

[jbelien]

Oh sure, if we could include a language "tag" that would be even better ! 🎉

I would maybe go for "native": {"fr":"Belgique", ...} than "native_fr": "Belgique"

[dmythro]

There's a cave-eat for CSV, SQL etc. I try to have simple structures, which are easy to use and describe with TS.

But for the next major version bump should probably re-think the module structure to use all advantages of JS and easily convert to other simpler formats. Have more JS code (getters, converters etc).

[jbelien]

There's a cave-eat for CSV, SQL etc. I try to have simple structures, which are easy to use and describe with TS.

That makes sense 👍

[ekleel]

Here two additional countries to consider

• Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia

  • Full name in Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية
  • Short name in Arabic: السعودية

• United Arab Emirates

  • Full name in Arabic: الإمارات العربية المتحدة
  • Short name in Arabic: الإمارات