The World Bank's income groups, regions and lending categories, each row
dated, so a country can be classified as it was on any day the table
covers. classify_countries() reads it; world_data() and
country_data() take their income and region from it, as of the
current fiscal year.
Format
A tibble with one row per classification spell: iso3c, scheme
("wb_income", "wb_region" or "wb_lending"), value, from and
to (the spell runs from from up to but not including to; NA means
open-ended, or, for from, in force since before the table's records
begin), source and note.
wb_incomeOne row per economy per World Bank fiscal year from FY1989 to FY2027, from the historical classification by income (OGHIST). Fiscal year t runs from 1 July t-1 to 30 June t and is set from GNI per capita for calendar year t-2; see
classify_countries(). An economy the World Bank did not classify in a year has no row for it.wb_regionThe current regions, with the July 2025 change dated: Afghanistan and Pakistan are in South Asia until 1 July 2025 and in "Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan & Pakistan" from then on, and the other members of that region carry its former name, "Middle East & North Africa", until the same date. No earlier region change is recorded.
wb_lendingThe FY2027 lending categories (IDA, IBRD, Blend). Earlier years are not recorded.
The World Bank's codes for two former entities are recoded to ISO
3166-3's (its YUG, Serbia and Montenegro, is SCG; its YUGf,
Yugoslavia, is YUG), and the Channel Islands, which have no ISO code,
are left out. The fiscal year the table reaches is its "vintage"
attribute.
Source
World Bank, "World Bank Country and Lending Groups" (CLASS) and the
historical classification by income (OGHIST), both licensed CC BY 4.0;
the July 2025 region change from the World Bank DataBank Metadata Glossary.
Built by data-raw/country_classifications.R, which checks one class per
economy per fiscal year, agreement with OGHIST's thresholds sheet, and the
current classes against the World Bank API.