href lang questions - please help

[MarkCanning]

Hi

I have a few questions about href lang implementation and I was hoping for some guidance / opinions.

An international website is using mostly a folder structure, but for some locations it might have standalone sub-domains. Some folders are there to target locations and languages, with others just targeting languages. See the list below:

domain.com/es-mx [Language: Spanish - Location: Mexico]
domain.com/pt-br [Language: Portuguese - Location: Brazil]
domain.com/ja-jp [Language: Japanese - Location: Japan]
domain.com/en-jp [Language: English - Location: Japan]
domain.com/fr-ca [Language: French - Location: Canada]
domain.com/en-ca [Language: English - Location: Canada]
domain.com/en-ie [Language: English - Location: Ireland]
domain.com/ar [Language: Arabic]
domain.com/ph [Language: Tagalog]
domain.com/it [Language: Italian]
domain.com/tr [Language: Turkish]
domain.com/kr [Language: Korean]
domain.com/fr [Language: French]
domain.com/ru [Language: Russian]
domain.com/vn [Language: Vietnamese]

domain.in/en [Language: English - Location Indian]
domain.in/hi [Language: Hindi - Location Indian]

My questions are:

1. Is href lang sitemap equally as good as the href lang meta tag in terms of effectiveness. I know that the sitemap is easier to maintain and upkeep but i don't know which one is better as google recommends both.

2. How do you mix your listings when some are targeting language and country and others are just targeting language speakers (not tied to any specific country). So take for example in the list above: there would be a general site for french speakers and then one for french speakers in Canada.

Thanks for your advise in advance.