diff --git a/tornettools/stage.py b/tornettools/stage.py
index 150561a..b05aa81 100644
--- a/tornettools/stage.py
+++ b/tornettools/stage.py
@@ -178,11 +178,34 @@ def stage_graph(args):
     # create new graph and copy only the nodes
     network = nx.classes.function.create_empty_copy(network)
 
+    if args.remove_nodes_without_country_code:
+        # prune nodes which don't contain the country_code key
+        network = remove_nodes_without_key(network_graph=network, key_to_check="country_code")
+
     # it takes networkx a few minutes to read the atlas graph, so we save a smaller graph containing
     # only the atlas graph nodes so that the 'generate' step can read these nodes much quicker
     network_info_path = f"{args.prefix}/networkinfo_staging.gml"
     nx.readwrite.gml.write_gml(network, network_info_path)
 
+def remove_nodes_without_key(network_graph, key_to_check):
+    nodes_to_remove = []
+    for node in network_graph.nodes:
+        node_properties_dict = network_graph.nodes[node]
+        try:
+            node_properties_dict[key_to_check]
+        except KeyError:
+            nodes_to_remove.append(node)
+
+    if len(nodes_to_remove) > 0:
+        network_graph.remove_nodes_from(nodes_to_remove)
+        logging.info(
+            f"Removed {len(nodes_to_remove)} nodes missing key {key_to_check}: "
+            f"{nodes_to_remove}"
+        )
+    else:
+        logging.info(f"All nodes in network graph contain the required key {key_to_check}.")
+    return network_graph
+
 def get_file_list(dir_path):
     file_paths = []
     for root, _, filenames in os.walk(dir_path):
diff --git a/tornettools/tornettools b/tornettools/tornettools
index 7405947..5055cc5 100644
--- a/tornettools/tornettools
+++ b/tornettools/tornettools
@@ -221,6 +221,14 @@ def main():
         help="""Compress output with xz.""",
         action="store_true", dest="do_compress",
         default=False)
+    
+    stage_parser.add_argument('--remove_nodes_without_country_code',
+        help="""Include only those nodes in the networkinfo_staging.gml
+            network graph that specify a country_code""",
+        action="store_true", 
+        default=False,
+        dest="remove_nodes_without_country_code",
+    )
 
     ############
     # generate #