Merge countries

You can browse all countries and a lot of predefined regions in DataPicta. However, sometimes you may want to create your own custom region by merging data from multiple countries. In this guide we will show how to create the BENELUX region by merging data from Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. The BENELUX region is often used in economic and political contexts to refer to these three neighboring countries in Western Europe.

Start with the Netherlands

1. Open the DataPicta app by going to app.datapicta.com (this will open a separate browser tab).
2. If you have used DataPicta before, click on New blank chart in the menu in the top right corner.
3. Click on the plus icon (+) next to Data.
4. In the Add data dialog, click Use geographic data.
5. Choose Countries as the preset.
6. Search for Netherlands in the list of countries and select it.

This will result in a visualization of the Netherlands, although you might think something went wrong — it did not. The Netherlands is a country in Western Europe, but it also has several overseas territories in the Caribbean. DataPicta includes these territories when you select the Netherlands. Let's remove them to have a clean map of just the European Netherlands.

7. In the geographic data table, look for the provinces that correspond to the overseas territories.
8. Click on the trash can icon next to Saba and delete this island from the data table.
9. Do the same for Sint Eustatius.
10. Above the data table, click the icon to switch to the chart view.

You should now have a chart showing data for the Netherlands only.

Add Belgium

1. Click on the plus icon (+) next to Data again.
2. In the Add data dialog, click Use geographic data.
3. Choose Countries as the preset.
4. Search for Belgium in the list of countries and select it.
5. Since you already have a geographic dataset in your chart, DataPicta will ask you what to do with the new data. Choose Merge.

Belgium does not have any overseas territories, so you don't have to delete anything this time. You should now see a chart with data for both the Netherlands and Belgium.

As you might notice, Luxembourg is shown in the bottom right corner. But this is not the country Luxembourg — rather a province in Belgium. So we still need to add the actual country Luxembourg.

Add Luxembourg

1. Click on the plus icon (+) next to Data again.
2. In the Add data dialog, click Use geographic data.
3. Choose Countries as the preset.
4. Search for Luxembourg in the list of countries and select it.
5. Click Merge to merge the data.

And there you have it — you have successfully created the BENELUX region by merging data from Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg!