ISO 3166-1 is part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization
for Standardization, and defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories,
and special areas of geographical interest. The official name of the standard is Codes
for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country
codes. It defines three sets of country codes: ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 – two-letter country
codes which are the most widely used of the three, and used most prominently for the Internet's
country code top-level domains. ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 – three-letter country
codes which allow a better visual association between the codes and the country names than
the alpha-2 codes. ISO 3166-1 numeric – three-digit country
codes which are identical to those developed and maintained by the United Nations Statistics
Division, with the advantage of script independence, and hence useful for people or systems using
non-Latin scripts. The alphabetic country codes were first included
in ISO 3166 in 1974, and the numeric country codes were first included in 1981. The country
codes have been published as ISO 3166-1 since 1997, when ISO 3166 was expanded into three
parts, with ISO 3166-2 defining codes for subdivisions and ISO 3166-3 defining codes
for former countries. As a widely used international standard, ISO
3166-1 is implemented in other standards and used by international organizations to allow
facilitation of the exchange of goods and information. However, it is not the only standard
for country codes. Other country codes used by many international organizations are partly
or totally incompatible with ISO 3166-1, although some of them closely correspond to ISO 3166-1
codes.
Criteria for inclusion Currently 249 countries, territories, or areas
of geographical interest are assigned official codes in ISO 3166-1. According to the ISO
3166 Maintenance Agency, the only way to enter a new country name into ISO 3166-1 is to have
it registered in one of the following two sources:
United Nations Terminology Bulletin Country Names, or
Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use of the UN Statistics Division.
To be listed in the bulletin Country Names, a country must be at least one of the following:
A member state of the United Nations A member of one of its specialized agencies
A party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice
The list of names in Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use of the UN Statistics Division
is based on the bulletin Country Names and other UN sources.
Once a country name or territory name appears in either of these two sources, it will be
added to ISO 3166-1 by default. The ISO 3166/MA may reserve code elements
for other entities that do not qualify for inclusion based on the above criteria. For
example, because the European Union is not a country, it is not formally included in
ISO 3166-1, but for practical reasons, the ISO 3166/MA has "reserved the two-letter combination
EU for the purpose of identifying the European Union within the framework of ISO 3166-1".
Naming and code construction
The country names used in ISO 3166-1 are taken from the two UN sources mentioned above. Some
country names used by the UN, and accordingly by ISO, are subject to dispute:
The Republic of Macedonia is listed as "Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of" because of
the Macedonia naming dispute, following the provisional reference used by the United Nations.
Taiwan is listed as non-independent "Taiwan, Province of China" or "Taiwan" as the lower-case
short name, with "Taiwan" as the local short name acknowledged, because of its political
status within the United Nations. In 2007, the Republic of China filed a lawsuit before
a Swiss civil court against the ISO, arguing that the ISO's use of the UN name rather than
"Republic of China" violates Taiwan's name rights. On 9 September 2010, a panel of the
Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland decided, by three votes to two, to dismiss the suit
as presenting a political question not subject to Swiss civil jurisdiction.
Following the recognition of Palestine as a non-member UN state in 2012, the official
designation used in ISO 3166-1 was changed from "Palestinian Territory, Occupied" to
"Palestine, State of", with a remark noting conventional names but still not considered
an independent sovereign state in ISO 3166. The codes are chosen, according to the ISO
3166/MA, "to reflect the significant, unique component of the country name in order to
allow a visual association between country name and country code". For this reason, common
components of country names like "Republic", "Kingdom", "United", "Federal" or "Democratic"
are normally not used for deriving the code elements. As a consequence, for example, the
United Kingdom is officially assigned the alpha-2 code GB rather than UK, based on its
official name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Some codes are chosen
based on the native names of the countries. For example, Germany is assigned the alpha-2
code DE, based on its native name "Deutschland". Information included
ISO 3166-1 is published officially in both English and French. Since the second edition
of ISO 3166-1, the following columns are included for each entry:
Country Name – English short name English short name
English full name Alpha-2 code
Alpha-3 code Numeric code
Remarks Independent
Additional information: Administrative language(s) alpha-2 code element(s)
Additional information: Administrative language(s) alpha-3 code element(s)
Additional information: Local short name(s) Current codes
Officially assigned code elements The following is a complete ISO 3166-1 encoding
list of the countries which are assigned official codes. It is listed in alphabetical order
by the English short country name used by the ISO 3166/MA.
Click on the button in the header to sort each column. For more information on each
country and the assignment of its code elements, click on its alpha-2 code.
Reserved and user-assigned code elements Besides the officially assigned codes, code
elements may be expanded by using either reserved codes or user-assigned codes.
Reserved code elements are codes which have become obsolete, or are required in order
to enable a particular user application of the standard but do not qualify for inclusion
in ISO 3166-1. To avoid transitional application problems and to aid users who require specific
additional code elements for the functioning of their coding systems, the ISO 3166/MA,
when justified, reserves these codes which it undertakes not to use for other than specified
purposes during a limited or indeterminate period of time. Codes are usually reserved
for former countries, overseas territories, international organizations, and special nationality
status. The reserved alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes can be divided into the following four categories:
Alpha-2: exceptional reservations, transitional reservations, indeterminate reservations,
and codes currently agreed not to use Alpha-3: exceptional reservations, transitional
reservations, indeterminate reservations, and codes currently agreed not to use
Numeric: no reserved codes User-assigned code elements are codes at the
disposal of users who need to add further names of countries, territories, or other
geographical entities to their in-house application of ISO 3166-1, and the ISO 3166/MA will never
use these codes in the updating process of the standard. The following codes can be user-assigned:
Alpha-2: AA, QM to QZ, XA to XZ, and ZZ Alpha-3: AAA to AAZ, QMA to QZZ, XAA to XZZ,
and ZZA to ZZZ Numeric: 900 to 999
Changes The ISO 3166/MA updates ISO 3166-1 when necessary.
A country is usually assigned new ISO 3166-1 codes if it changes its name or its territorial
boundaries. In general, new alphabetic codes are assigned if a country changes a significant
part of its name, while a new numeric code is assigned if a country changes its territorial
boundaries. Codes for formerly used country names that were deleted from ISO 3166-1 are
published in ISO 3166-3. ISO used to announce changes in newsletters
which updated the currently valid standard, and releasing new editions which comprise
a consolidation of newsletter changes. As of July 2013, changes are published in the
online catalogue of ISO only and no newsletters are published anymore. Past newsletters remain
available on the ISO website. See also
ISO 639 – Codes for the representation of names of languages
References ^ "ISO 3166 – FAQs – General questions".
International Organization for Standardization. ^ "Development of ISO 3166". ISO.
^ "Implementation of ISO 3166-1". ISO. ^ "You and
ISO 3166". ISO. ^ "Links". ISO.
^ "ISO 3166-1 and ccTLDs". ISO. ^ "Qualifying top-level domain strings: Eligible
categories of top-level domains". Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. Retrieved February
25, 2014. ^ "ISO 3166 – FAQs – General Questions".
ISO. Archived from the original on 2007-03-06. ^ a b c "ISO 3166 – FAQs – Specific".
ISO. Archived from the original on 2012-06-16. ^ "ISO 3166 information for TW". International
Organization for Standardization. Retrieved February 25, 2014.
^ "Taiwan sues ISO over incorrect reference". Taipei Representative Office in the UK.
^ Felber, René. "Umweg über Zivilrichter unzulässig: Taiwans Kampf um seinen Namen".
Neue Zürcher Zeitung. p. 14. ^ "Urteil vom 9. September 2010" [Decision
of 9 September 2010]. Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland.
^ "Arrêt du 9 septembre 2010" [Decision of 9 September 2010]. Federal Supreme Court of
Switzerland. ^ "Countries or areas, codes and abbreviations".
United Nations Statistics Division. ^ "ISO 3166 information for PS". International
Organization for Standardization. Retrieved April 3, 2014.
^ "Country names and code elements". ISO. – Note: The source actually shows only the "Country
Name" element, in all upper-case. The table here has been upper/lower-cased per Wikipedia
standards, but should closely resemble the upper/lower-case elements that are not freely
available from the ISO. ^ "Customizing ISO 3166-1". ISO.
^ "ISO 3166 – FAQs – General Questions". ISO. Archived from the original on 2007-03-06.
^ "Updates on ISO 3166". ISO. Sources and external links
ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization
Country names and code elements — list of alpha-2 codes
Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use, United Nations Statistics Division
Countries or areas, codes and abbreviations — list of alpha-3 and numeric codes
The World Factbook, Central Intelligence Agency Appendix D – Cross-Reference List of Country
Data Codes — comparison of FIPS 10, ISO 3166, and STANAG 1059 country codes
Administrative Divisions of Countries, Statoids.com Country codes — comparison of ISO 3166-1
country codes with other country codes