Table 2. Population classes organize population samples by geographic region.
| Population class | Description | Population class in Sybase, ASN.1, and XML |
|---|---|---|
| Central Asia | Samples from Russia and its satellite Republics and from nations bordering the Indian Ocean between East Asia and the Persian Gulf regions. | 8 |
| Central/South Africa | Samples from nations south of the Equator, Madagascar, and neighboring island nations. | 4 |
| Central/South America | Samples from Mainland Central and South America and island nations of the western Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Eastern Pacific. | 10 |
| East Asia | Samples from eastern and south eastern Mainland Asia and from Northern Pacific island nations. | 6 |
| Europe | Samples from Europe north and west of Caucasus Mountains, Scandinavia, and Atlantic islands. | 5 |
| Multi-National | Samples that were designated to maximize measures of heterogeneity or sample human diversity in a global fashion. Examples include OEFNER|GLOBAL and the CEPH repository. | 1 |
| North America | All samples north of the Tropic of Cancer, including defined samples of United States Caucasians, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and the NHGRI polymorphism discovery resource (NCBI|NIHPDR). | 9 |
| North/East Africa and Middle East | Samples collected from North Africa (including the Sahara desert), East Africa (south to the Equator), Levant, and the Persian Gulf. | 2 |
| Pacific | Samples from Australia, New Zealand, Central and Southern Pacific Islands, and Southeast Asian peninsular/island nations. | 7 |
| Unknown | Samples with unknown geographic provinces that are not global in nature. | 11 |
| West Africa | Sub-Saharan nations bordering the Atlantic north of the Congo River and central/southern Atlantic island nations. | 3 |
From: Chapter 5, The Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Database (dbSNP) of Nucleotide Sequence Variation
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