ISO 3166-1
ISO 3166-1 is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It is the first part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization.
It defines three sets of country codes:
- ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 – two-letter country codes which are 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.
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.
| Find a country |
| Enter an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code to find the corresponding country article. |
type=search width=10 default=ISO 3166-1: buttonlabel=Go searchbuttonlabel=Search break=no |
Criteria for inclusion
Codes for 249 countries, territories, or areas of geographical interest are assigned 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 United Nations Statistics Division.
- 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
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 for the purpose of identifying the European Union within the framework of ISO 3166-1".
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 lower case
- English full name
- Alpha-2 code
- Alpha-3 code
- Numeric code
- Remarks
- Independent
- Additional information: Administrative language alpha-2 code element
- Additional information: Administrative language alpha-3 code element
- Additional information: Local short name
Naming and code construction
Naming and disputes
The country names used in ISO 3166-1 are taken from the two UN sources. Some country names used by the UN, and accordingly by ISO, are disputed:| Short name upper case in ISO 3166 | Short name lower case in ISO 3166 ----Full name | Listed as independent in ISO 3166 | Local short name | Dispute | Link to ISO 3166-2 |
| AFGHANISTAN | Afghanistan the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan | Under the unrecognized government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan | ISO 3166-2:AF | ||
| CHINA | China ----the People's Republic of China | Disputed sovereignty with Taiwan | ISO 3166-2:CN | ||
| CYPRUS | Cyprus ----the Republic of Cyprus | Disputed sovereignty with Northern Cyprus | ISO 3166-2:CY | ||
| | Falkland Islands | Disputed sovereignty and naming | ISO 3166-2:FK | ||
| PALESTINE, STATE OF | Palestine, State of ----the State of Palestine | Disputed sovereignty with Israel | ISO 3166-2:PS | ||
| Taiwan | Disputed sovereignty and naming | ISO 3166-2:TW | |||
| WESTERN SAHARA | Western Sahara | Disputed sovereignty with Morocco | ISO 3166-2:EH |
Coding
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 rather than, 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, based on its native name "Deutschland".Codes
The complete ISO 3166-1 list of countries and their assigned codes, listed in alphabetical order by the country's English short name used by the ISO 3166/MA:Each country's alpha-2 code is linked to more information about the assignment of its code elements.
| English short name | Alpha-2 code | Alpha-3 code | Numeric code | Link to ISO 3166-2 | Independent | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Islamic Republic of Afghanistanefn|name=disputes|See also the table in above.mono|AFmono|AFGmono|004yesReserved and user-assigned code elementsThe officially assigned code elements may be expanded by using either [|reserved] codes or user-assigned codes.Reserved code elements are codes which have become obsolete, are used in other coding systems such as WIPO ST.3, 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 for a certain use for 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 three categories:
ISO formerly announced changes in newsletters which updated the standard, and periodically released new editions which consolidated the newsletter changes. As of July 2013, changes are published in the online catalogue of ISO only, and newsletters are no longer published. Past newsletters remain available via the search option on the ISO website.
|