The Colonial/Dependency Contiguity data set registers contiguity relationships between the colonies/dependencies of states (by land and by sea up to 400 miles) from 1816-2016.
Colonial/Dependency Contiguity, 1816-2016
Overview
Version 3.1 of the Correlates of War Colonial/Dependency Contiguity data identifies all contiguity relationships between states in the international system from 1816 through 2016 through their colonies or dependencies. That is, if two dependencies of two states are contiguous, or if one state is contiguous to a dependency of another, the data set reports a contiguity relationship between the two main states (with appropriate codes identifying the relevant dependent entity/entities). The classification system for contiguous dyads is comprised of five categories, one for land contiguity and four for water contiguity. Land contiguity is defined as the intersection of the homeland territory of states/colonies/dependencies in the dyad, either through a land boundary or a river. Water contiguity is divided into four categories, based on a separation by water of 12, 24, 150, and 400 miles.
Citation
In any papers or publications that utilize this data set, users are asked to give the version number and cite the data set, as follows:
Correlates of War Project. Colonial Contiguity Data, 1816-2016. Version 3.1.
Data Set
The files associated with the colonial/dependency contiguity data set can be obtained either individually, or in one ZIP file. The data file is in .csv (comma-delimited) format. In this format, values are separated by commas. The first line of the data file is a header record containing the variable names. The data file has a non-directed format in order to prevent asymmetries from accidentally being introduced into the data set. The data set lists only dyads that are contiguous via colonies/possessions; dyads not listed in the data set are not contiguous in this fashion. So, dyads that are directly contiguous (land or sea within 400 miles) are listed in the direct contiguity data set, and not here. Particular state-state pairs may have several different colonial/dependency relationships listed if one or both states have multiple colonies/dependencies. In these cases, separate dyadic relationships are created for each interaction between states/dependencies that fall within the 400 mile range. Examples to assist in interpreting the data are included within the documentation file.
The zip file below (Colonial Contiguity v3.1.zip) contains eight separate data files:
- ContCol: The master data file (with one entry per contiguity relationship) in .dta and .csv.
- ContcolD: A dyad-year-level summary data set in .dta and .csv.
- ContColS: A state-year-level summary data set.
- Colonial Contiguity Codebook.pdf: Documentation for the data set.
- Entities.pdf: List of entities (colonies, dependencies, and possessions) referred to in colonial/dependency contiguity data set.
Questions and Feedback
The contiguity data sets are hosted by Paul Hensel, University of North Texas, under the COW Data Hosting Program. In case of questions or concerns concerning the data or coding rules, please contact Paul Hensel at phensel@unt.edu.
Colonial/Dependency Contiguity (v3.1)
All eight files of the v3.1 data.
ColonialContiguity310.zip — Zip archive, 415 KB (425836 bytes)