What is the best method to block country access?

I've read many things, but here is the grunt of it.

I want to block certain countries from access to a site. Either by ip when noted via logs due to certain bs, or an entire country.

using htaccess

I've started something like this, but I fear it can degrade server performance as well.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} (aa|ab|af|am|ar|as|ay|az|ba|be|bg|bh|bi|bn|bo|br|ca|co|cs|cy|dz|eo|et|eu|fa|fi|fj|fo|fy|gd|gl|gn|gu|ha|hi|hr|hu|hy|ia|ie|ik|in|is|iw|ji|jw|ka|kk|kl|km|kn|ks|ku|ky|ln|lo|lt|lv|mg|mi|mk|ml|mn|mo|mr|ms|mt|my|na|ne|oc|om|or|pa|pl|ps|qu|rm|rn|ro|ru|rw|sa|sd|sg|sh|si|sk|sl|sm|sn|so|sq|sr|ss|st|su|sw|ta|te|tg|th|ti|tk|tl|tn|to|tr|ts|tt|tw|uk|ur|uz|vi|vo|wo|xh|yo|zu) [NC]
RewriteRule .* http://www.whatever.com/noaccess.htm [R,L]

<Files *.php>
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
</Files>

<Files *.jsp>
Order Deny,Allow
Deny from all
</Files>

and so on, due to the ip list it is getting booksize like a rampant bunny...

So, somewhat lost and stuck...ideas anyone?

Intel: Is this working for you? and if so where do you put this information? I am having issues with "phoney customer memberships" from countries lately, and want to nip it in the bud.

check out http://www.hostip.info/use.html I use it successfully to get the users state location so that on forms the state field is preselected in the drop down box.

Here is the code I use for the state but I know you can get the county pretty easily too.

<select name="state" id="newsletter_state">
<?php
$request = 'http://api.hostip.info/get_html.php?ip='.$_SERVER["REMOTE_ADDR"];
$session = curl_init($request);
curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);
curl_setopt($session, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$response = curl_exec($session);
curl_close($session); 

$parts = explode("City:",$response);
$parts = explode(",", $parts[1]);
$city = trim($parts[0]);
$state = strtoupper(trim($parts[1]));
echo '<option value="Outside US">Outside US</option>';
foreach($states as $option => $value) {
    echo '<option value="'.$option.'"';
    if ($option == $state) {
        echo ' selected="selected"';
    }
    echo '>'.$option.'  </option>';
}
?>
</select>    

that will make your website CRAZY slow..

as it has to download a file every time and prase it.

.htaccess method is the quickest, under 1/10 sec.

im working on a php method for one of my clients that will be built into zencart, without the performance implications.

There is a mod for this guys:

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=1203