In the past, the terminology (domains vs. strata) has not always been consistent. Please interpret v023 as the stratification variable. That is what you should use in svyset, as in "svyset...., strata(v023)".

Sometimes v023 is empty. We are slowly producing a complete list of the stratification variable for all the surveys. In almost all cases, v023 (and/or the correct stratification variable) are the combinations of region (v024) and place of residence (v025). You can construct that with "egen stratumid=group(v024 v025)" and then "svyset....., strata(stratumid)". Actually I recommend "svyset....., strata(stratumid) singleunit(centered)", or another singleunit option, to avoid an error message.....

Hi Jack--The only change I would make to that line would be with v001. That's the cluster (PSU) id code and it is typically numbered 1, 2, 3, etc., within each survey. If you don't renumber the clusters in the combined file, Stata will think that cluster 1 in each survey is the same cluster, etc. You need to renumber the clusters in the same way that you renumbered the strata (in Stata the command would be "egen clusterid=group(survey v001").

For a very few surveys (only the Egypt surveys, so far as I know) the PSU variable is v021 rather than v001. Usually v001 and v021 are exactly the same. If they are not, you would use v021 in svyset.

Sorry about that. Yes, you need an identifier for each survey. You cannot use v000 for that purpose, because it can happen that DHS does two surveys in the same country with the same version of the core questionnaire. (The third character of v000 is often taken to be the phase of DHS--that's what I thought until relatively recently--but it actually identifies the version of the questionnaire.) You can find many instances of two successive surveys in the same country having the same value of v000. It is best to construct a unique identifier for each survey, as you describe. That's what I meant by "survey" in that line.