The steps you need to follow to complete this recipe are as follows:

1. In case you still haven't done it, export the countries shapefile to PostGIS using the ogr2ogr or the shp2pgsql commands. The shp2pgsql approach is as shown:

      $ shp2pgsql -I -d -s 4326 -W LATIN1 -g the_geom countries.shp
      chp01.countries > countries.sql
      $ psql -U me -d postgis_cookbook -f countries.sql

2. The ogr2ogr approach is as follows:

      $ ogr2ogr -f PostgreSQL PG:"dbname='postgis_cookbook' user='me'
      password='mypassword'"
      -lco SCHEMA=chp01 countries.shp -nlt MULTIPOLYGON -lco OVERWRITE=YES
      -lco GEOMETRY_NAME=the_geom

3. Now, query PostGIS in order to get a list of countries grouped by the subregion field. For this purpose, you will merge the geometries for features having the same subregion code, using the ST_Union PostGIS geometric processing function:

      postgis_cookbook=> SELECT subregion,
        ST_Union(the_geom) AS the_geom, SUM(pop2005) AS pop2005
        FROM chp01.countries GROUP BY subregion;

4. Execute the pgsql2shp PostGIS command to export into a shapefile the result of the given query:

      $ pgsql2shp -f subregions.shp -h localhost -u me -P mypassword
      postgis_cookbook "SELECT MIN(subregion) AS subregion, 
      ST_Union(the_geom) AS the_geom, SUM(pop2005) AS pop2005 
      FROM chp01.countries GROUP BY subregion;" 
 
      Initializing... 
      Done (postgis major version: 2). 
      Output shape: Polygon 
      Dumping: X [23 rows]. 

5. Open the shapefile and inspect it with your favorite desktop GIS. This is how it looks in QGIS after applying a graduated classification symbology style based on the aggregated population for each subregion: