Tree View with Popular Sub-Items Preview

There is a geographical hierarchy: Country -> Region -> Subregion.

We need to represent this in a dialogue like this:

  • Country 1
    • Preview of top 5 popular regions or subregions of country 1...
  • Country 2
    • Preview top 5 popular regions or subregions of country 2...
  • ...

The aim is to show most popular items without forcing users to travel through the whole tree. For many users it is too hard to find the particular subregion because they don't know its parent. Some Subregions are much more popular than their parent Regions.

Example:

  • Italy
    • preview of popular subitems: Chianti (subregion), Tuscany (region), Barolo (subregion), Sicily (region), Veneto (region)
  • France
    • preview of popular subitems: Bordeaux (region), Chablis (subregion), Burgundy (region)...

This representation will cover the needs of 80% users. Each shown item will be clickable - after click either on Country, Region or Subregion the appropriate filter will be applied. The dialog will be closed and the user will see the product list.

Another scenario (for 20% of rest users) - users need to go inside the country level to see the all its regions (and popular subregions).

The problem is how to combine this to scenarios so that it will be clear how to go select the exact tree item OR to go to the deeper level.

Is there a patterns for that representation or scenarios? Any ideas will be appreciated.

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