Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes developed to represent
countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several
different systems have been developed to do this. The best known of these is ISO 3166-1.
The term country code frequently refers to international dialing codes, the E.164 country
calling codes.
ISO 3166-1
This standard defines for most of the countries and dependent areas in the world:
a two-letter a three-letter, and
a three-digit numeric code. The two-letter codes are used as the basis
for some other codes or applications, for example,
for ISO 4217 currency codes and with deviations, for country code top-level
domain names on the Internet: list of Internet TLDs.
For more applications see ISO 3166-1 alpha-2. Other country codes
European Union: Before the 2004 EU enlargement the EU used
the UN Road Traffic Conventions license plate codes; since then, it uses ISO 3166-1
The Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques of the European Union, mostly
focusing on subdivisions of the EU member states
FIFA assigns a three-letter code to each of its member and non-member countries: List
of FIFA country codes Federal Information Processing Standard 10-4
defined two-letter codes used by the U.S. government and in the CIA World Factbook:
list of FIPS country codes. On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn
by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard.
GOST 7.67: country codes in Cyrillic from the GOST standards committee
From the International Civil Aviation Organization: The national prefixes used in aircraft registration
numbers Location prefixes in four-character ICAO airport
codes
International Olympic Committee three-letter codes used in sporting events: list of IOC
country codes From the International Telecommunication Union:
the E.164 international telephone dialing codes: list of country calling codes with
1-3 digits, the E.212 mobile country codes, for mobile/wireless
phone addresses, the first few characters of call signs of
radio stations define the country: the ITU prefix,
ITU letter codes for member-countries, ITU prefix - amateur and experimental stations
- The International Telecommunications Union assigns national telecommuncation prefixes
for amateur and experimental radio use, so that operators can be identified by their
country of origin. These prefixes are legally administered by the national entity to which
prefix ranges are assigned. Three-digit codes used to identify countries
in maritime mobile radio transmissions, known as maritime identification digits
License plates for automobiles: Under the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Road
Traffic Conventions: List of international license plate codes.
Diplomatic license plates in the United States, assigned by the U.S. State Department.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation used two-letter codes of its own: list of NATO country codes.
They were largely borrowed from the FIPS 10-4 codes mentioned below. In 2003 the eighth
edition of the Standardisation Agreement adopted the ISO 3166 three-letter codes with one exception.
With the ninth edition, NATO is transitioning to four- and six-letter codes based on ISO
3166 with a few exceptions and additions United Nations Development Programme also
has its own list of trigram country codes World Intellectual Property Organization:
WIPO ST.3 gives two-letter codes to countries and regional intellectual property organizations
World Meteorological Organization has its own list of country codes, used in reporting
meteorological observations UIC: UIC Country Codes
The developers of ISO 3166 intended that in time it would replace other coding systems
in existence. Other codings
The following can represent countries: The initial digits of International Standard
Book Numbers are group identifiers for countries, areas, or language regions.
The first three digits of GS1 Company Prefixes used to identify products, for example, in
barcodes, designate numbering agencies. Lists of country codes by country
A - B - C - D-E - F - G - H-I - J-K - L - M - N - O-Q - R - S - T - U-Z
See also ISO 639 language codes
Language code Numbering scheme
Top-level domain References
Ref#1 point to non-existent source with HTTP30X code.
External links List of country Codes and short country information
Dialing Country Codes and Cities Area Codes Comparison of various systems
Another comparison: Country Codes at statoids.com A comparison with ISO, IFS and others with
notes United Nations Region Codes
Country codes with city codes inside each country with short country description