United Nations Statistics Division in the context of "Sub-Saharan African"

A subregion is a part of a larger geographical region or continent. Cardinal directions are commonly used to define subregions. There are many criteria for creating systems of subregions; this article is focusing on the United Nations geoscheme, which is a changing, constantly updated, UN tool based on specific political geography and demography considerations relevant in UN statistics.

South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern subregion of the Americas.

South America is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north and east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Drake Passage; North America, the Caribbean Sea lying to the northwest, and the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula to the south.

The United Nations geoscheme is a system that divides 248 countries and territories in the world into six continental regions, 22 geographical subregions, and two intermediary regions. It was devised by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) based on the M49 coding classification. The creators note that "the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories".

The UNSD geoscheme was created for statistical analysis and consists of macro-geographical regions arranged to the extent possible according to continents. Within each region, smaller geographical subregions and sometimes intermediary regions contain countries and territories. Countries and territories are also grouped non-geographically into selected economic and other sets, such as the landlocked developing countries, the least developed countries, and the Small Island Developing States.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African countries and territories that are situated fully in that specified region, the term may also include polities that only have part of their territory located in that region, per the definition of the United Nations (UN). This is considered a non-standardised geographical region with the number of countries included varying from 46 to 48 depending on the organisation describing the region (e.g. UN, WHO, World Bank, etc.). The African Union (AU) uses a different regional breakdown, recognising all 55 member states on the continent—grouping them into five distinct and standard regions.

The term serves as a grouping counterpart to North Africa, which is instead grouped with the definition of MENA (i.e. Middle East and North Africa) as it is part of the Arab world, and most North African states are likewise members of the Arab League. However, while they are also member states of the Arab League, the Comoros, Djibouti, Mauritania, and Somalia (and sometimes Sudan) are all geographically considered to be part of sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, the UN Development Programme applies the "sub-Saharan" classification to 46 of Africa's 55 countries, excluding Djibouti, SADR, Somalia, and Sudan. The concept has been criticised by scholars on both sides of the Sahara as a racialist construction.

East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the region is recognized in the United Nations Statistics Division scheme as encompassing 18 sovereign states and 4 territories. It includes the Horn of Africa to the North and Southeastern Africa to the south.

This is the list of countries and other inhabited territories of the world by estimated total population. It is based on estimates published by the United Nations in the 2024 revision of World Population Prospects. It presents population estimates from 1950 to the present.

The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) is a United Nations industry classification system. Wide use has been made of ISIC in classifying data according to kind of economic activity in the fields of employment and health data.

It is maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division.