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ISO 3166-1 alpha-2

A map of Europe, with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes in place of the full names of countries and other territories. 'Exceptional reservations' codes CQ, EU and UK are not shown.

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard[1] published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. They are the most widely used of the country codes published by ISO (the others being alpha-3 and numeric), and are used most prominently for the Internet's country code top-level domains (with a few exceptions). They are also used as country identifiers extending the postal code when appropriate within the international postal system for paper mail, and have replaced the previous one consisting one-letter codes. They were first included as part of the ISO 3166 standard in its first edition in 1974.

Uses and applications

The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are used in different environments and are also part of other standards. In some cases they are not perfectly implemented.

Perfect implementations

The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are used in the following standards:

Imperfect implementations

Starting in 1985, ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes have been used in the Domain Name System as country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority currently assigns the ccTLDs mostly following the alpha-2 codes, but with a few exceptions.[8] For example, the United Kingdom, whose alpha-2 code is GB, uses .uk instead of .gb as its ccTLD, as UK is currently exceptionally reserved in ISO 3166-1 on the request of the United Kingdom.

The WIPO coding standard ST.3 is based on ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, but includes a number of additional codes for international intellectual property organizations, which are currently reserved and not used at the present stage in ISO 3166-1.[9]

The European Commission generally uses ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes with two exceptions: EL (not GR) is used to represent Greece, and UK (not GB) is used to represent the United Kingdom.[10][11] This notwithstanding, the Official Journal of the European Communities specified that GR and GB be used to represent Greece and United Kingdom respectively.[12] For VAT administration purposes, the European Commission uses EL and GB for Greece and the United Kingdom respectively.

The United Nations uses a combination of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes, along with codes that pre-date the creation of ISO 3166, for international vehicle registration codes, which are codes used to identify the issuing country of a vehicle registration plate; some of these codes are currently indeterminately reserved in ISO 3166-1.[13]

IETF language tags (conforming to the BCP 47 standard track and maintained in an IANA registry) are also partially derived from ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes (for the region subtags). The full list of ISO 3166-1 codes assigned to countries and territories are usable as region subtags. Also, the "exceptionally reserved" alpha-2 codes defined in ISO 3166-1 (with the exception of UK) are also usable as region subtags for language tags. However, newer stability policies (agreed with ISO) have been implemented to avoid deleting subtags that have been withdrawn in ISO 3166-1; instead they are kept and aliased to the new preferred subtags, or kept as subtags grouping several countries. Some other region grouping subtags are derived from other standards. Under the newer stability policies, old assigned codes that have been withdrawn from ISO 3166-1 should no longer be reassigned to another country or territory (as has occurred in the past for "CS").

Current codes

Decoding table

The following is a colour-coded decoding table of all ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes.

Officially assigned code elements

The following is a complete list of the 249 current officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, with the following columns:[1]

User-assigned code elements

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 alpha-2 codes can be user-assigned: AA, QM to QZ, XA to XZ, and ZZ.[21] For example:

Furthermore, the code element OO is designated as an escape code if the number of regular user-assigned code elements is not sufficient.[32]

Reserved code elements

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. The reserved alpha-2 codes can be divided into the following four categories: exceptional reservations, transitional reservations, indeterminate reservations, and codes currently agreed not to use.

Exceptional reservations

Exceptionally reserved code elements are codes reserved at the request of national ISO member bodies, governments and international organizations, which are required in order to support a particular application, as specified by the requesting body and limited to such use; any further use of such code elements is subject to approval by the ISO 3166/MA. The following alpha-2 codes are currently exceptionally reserved:

The following alpha-2 codes were previously exceptionally reserved, but are now officially assigned:

Transitional reservations

Transitional reserved code elements are codes reserved after their deletion from ISO 3166-1. These codes may be used only during a transitional period of at least five years while new code elements that may have replaced them are taken into use. These codes may be reassigned by the ISO 3166/MA after the expiration of the transitional period. The following alpha-2 codes are currently transitionally reserved:

The following alpha-2 code was previously transitionally reserved, but was later reassigned to another country as its official code:

For each deleted alpha-2 code, an entry for the corresponding former country name is included in ISO 3166-3. Each entry is assigned a four-letter alphabetic code, where the first two letters are the deleted alpha-2 code.

Indeterminate reservations

Indeterminately reserved code elements are codes used to designate road vehicles under the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic but differing from those contained in ISO 3166-1. These code elements are expected eventually to be either eliminated or replaced by code elements within ISO 3166-1. In the meantime, the ISO 3166/MA has reserved such code elements for an indeterminate period. Any use beyond the application of the two Conventions is discouraged and will not be approved by the ISO 3166/MA. Moreover, these codes may be reassigned by the ISO 3166/MA at any time. The following alpha-2 codes are currently indeterminately reserved:

The following alpha-2 codes were previously indeterminately reserved, but have been reassigned to another country as its official code:

Notes
  1. ^ a b c d e f g Code notified to United Nations Secretary-General under 1949 or 1968 Road Traffic Conventions
  2. ^ a b c d e f Code in use for road transport purposes, but not notified to United Nations Secretary-General under 1949 Road Traffic Convention
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Code under 1949 Road Traffic Convention
  4. ^ a b Code under 1968 Road Traffic Convention
  5. ^ Code notified to United Nations Secretary-General under 1949 or 1968 Road Traffic Conventions.
    Previously used in international postal codes and vehicle registration codes to represent Finland (code was not officially assigned), and the code was previously listed as transitionally reserved from 1995-09 until 2012-06.
    Code taken from name in Finnish and Swedish combined: Suomi Finland.

Codes currently agreed not to use

In addition, the ISO 3166/MA will not use the following alpha-2 codes at the present stage, as they are used for international intellectual property organizations in WIPO Standard ST.3:

WIPO Standard ST.3 actually uses EA, instead of EV, to represent the Eurasian Patent Organization. However, EA was already exceptionally reserved by the ISO 3166/MA to represent Ceuta and Melilla for customs purposes. The ISO 3166/MA proposed in 1995 that EV be used by WIPO to represent the Eurasian Patent Organization; however, this request was not honoured by WIPO.

Deleted codes

Besides the codes currently transitionally reserved and two other codes currently exceptionally reserved (FX for France, Metropolitan and SU for USSR), the following alpha-2 codes have also been deleted from ISO 3166-1:[36]

For each deleted alpha-2 code, an entry for the corresponding former country name is included in ISO 3166-3. Each entry is assigned a four-letter alphabetic code, where the first two letters are the deleted alpha-2 code.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Country Codes - ISO 3166". International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
  2. ^ "The International Standard Recording Code". International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Archived from the original on 2014-02-12. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  3. ^ "Currency codes - ISO 4217". ISO.
  4. ^ "ISO6166 - an outline of the standard". Association of National Numbering Agencies. Archived from the original on 2009-07-27. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  5. ^ "About BIC". Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Archived from the original on 2009-03-01.
  6. ^ "IBAN Registry" (PDF). Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-01-02.
  7. ^ a b "UN/LOCODE Code List by Country". United Nations Economic Commission for Europe. Retrieved 6 May 2017.
  8. ^ "IANA – Root Zone Database". Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
  9. ^ "Standard ST.3 – Recommended standard on two-letter codes for the representation of states, other entities and intergovernmental organizations" (PDF). Handbook on Industrial Property Information and Documentation. World Intellectual Property Organization. April 2007. pp. 3.3.1–3.3.9.
  10. ^ "Publications Office – Interinstitutional style guide – Countries". European Union.
  11. ^ "Interinstitutional style guide – 'EU-27 and candidate countries'". publications.europa.eu. Retrieved 2022-10-03.
  12. ^ "Commission Regulation (EC) No 2645/98 of 9 December 1998 on the nomenclature of countries and territories for the external trade statistics of the Community and statistics of trade between Member States". Official Journal of the European Communities, L 335. European Union. 1998-12-10. pp. 22–29.
  13. ^ "Distinguishing signs used on vehicles in international traffic" (PDF). United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
  14. ^ a b "Codes to history: Code for formerly used names of countries completes the trilogy of country codes" (PDF). ISO Bulletin. ISO. April 2000. pp. 10–12. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 5, 2008.
  15. ^ "Falkland Islands Government". Archived from the original on 2016-12-11. Retrieved 2016-12-22.
  16. ^ a b "ISO 3166 – FAQs – Specific". ISO.
  17. ^ IANA .gb whois information
  18. ^ "NL - Netherlands (Kingdom of the)". ISO Online Browsing Platform.
  19. ^ Special Meeting of the Board Minutes ICANN, January 16, 2007
  20. ^ "Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
  21. ^ "Glossary for ISO 3166 - Codes for countries and their subdivisions". ISO.
  22. ^ "International ISRC Agency Bulletin 2010/02: Country Code for ISRC in the United States" (PDF). IFPI. 6 December 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-08-10. Retrieved 2019-02-27.
  23. ^ Mark Davis. "Unicode Technical Standard #35: Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML)". Unicode Consortium.
  24. ^ "List of Countries for the foreign trade statistics of Switzerland 2017" (PDF). ezv.admin.ch. 2017. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-02-02.
  25. ^ "Мир ∙ География ∙ Справочник ∙ Президент России".
  26. ^ "Get an EORI number". gov.uk. Retrieved 2020-12-07.
  27. ^ Swedish tax Authority: This is how VAT is affected by Brexit - Special rules for trade with Northern Ireland
  28. ^ "Glossary:Country codes - Statistics Explained". europa.eu.
  29. ^ SWIFT: IBAN Registry Archived 2013-11-01 at the Wayback Machine, Release 50, September 2014
  30. ^ "XK country code for Kosovo". GeoNames Blog. 8 March 2010.
  31. ^ "Agreement between the Nordic Patent Institute and the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization" (PDF). World Intellectual Property Organization. 1 May 2013. Retrieved 2013-08-07.
  32. ^ "Country codes in ISO 3166". davros.org. 2003-07-25. Retrieved 2018-11-13.
  33. ^ "EA -". ISO Online Browsing Platform.
  34. ^ "Codes for the representation of names of countries" (PDF) (First ed.). International Organization for Standardization. 15 December 1974. Retrieved 9 July 2021 – via cia.gov.
  35. ^ "Report on zr domain deletion". iana.org. IANA. June 20, 2001. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
  36. ^ Clive Feather (2003-07-25). "Country codes in ISO 3166 (Table 2: codes withdrawn from use)".

Sources and external links