Wales missing from map

Wales has been left off a map used by European Union statisticians to illustrate the front cover of their official annual yearbook.

The map of Europe shows England and Scotland in the correct position but between the Welsh border and Ireland there is nothing but the Irish Sea.

The Eurostat Yearbook 2004 is billed as the EU organisation's "statistical compendium ... presenting the diversity of Eurostat's data" and costs 50 euro ($92.97). A spokesperson for Eurostat could not say how the error had occurred.