Contiguity matrix

[YOFFO PRISCA]

Hello everyone,
Is there any way to construct a matrix in STATA taking into account the real country neighbors and not the coordinates?
Thanks in advance

[Andrew Musau]

Your statement implies that using coordinates does not reflect "real" neighbors, which is not correct. Spatial adjacency based on coordinates— constructed using contiguity—does reflect geographic neighbors as defined by shared borders. If your concern is that a specific unit (e.g., region X) is assigned to the wrong country (e.g., country Y), then this is a data or shapefile issue. In such cases, the only way to resolve it is to edit the shapefile directly, by changing the identifier for that unit (e.g., reassigning region X to the correct country). However, this can be risky and potentially misleading, particularly if the geographic data are being altered without clear documentation or justification.