Hi! Not sure how common the use of spmap here is, but I was having the following problem:

I generally understand stata, but shp files, not so much. Much similar to this source, I've created a map with borders (in my case world map) and a map with dots. I have also reshaped the shp into a datafile using shp2data.

I thus also have a database with coordinates of world countries, and a database with individual observations and their GPS location.

What I want to know is how each observation falls within each country. E.g. - I have:

 Country A - Long - Lat - Area
 Country B - Long - Lat - Area
 Individual I - Long - Lat

I want to assign each I to country X. I have no clue how shapefiles are turned into maps, because, as far as I can see, I only have a long/lat/area, and no way to turn that into border coordinates specifically. Is there anyone who could provide some help?

Cheers!