ISO 3166-1 (Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country code) is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It is the first part of theISO 3166 standard published by theInternational Organization for Standardization.
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.
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, withISO 3166-2 defining codes forsubdivisions andISO 3166-3 defining codes forformer countries.[1]
As a widely used international standard, ISO 3166-1 is implemented in other standards and used byinternational organizations[1] to allow facilitation of the exchange of goods and information.[1] 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,[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.
Codes for 249 countries, territories, or areas of geographical interest are assigned in ISO 3166-1.[2] According to the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA), 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:[1]
United Nations Terminology BulletinCountry Names, or
The list of names inCountry and Region Codes for Statistical Use of the UN Statistics Division is based on the bulletinCountry 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 mayreserve code elements for other entities that do not qualify for inclusion based on the above criteria.[4] For example, because theEuropean 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 combinationEU for the purpose of identifying the European Union within the framework of ISO 3166-1".[5]
ISO 3166-1 is published officially in bothEnglish andFrench. Since the second edition of ISO 3166-1, the following columns are included for each entry:
Country Name – English (or French) short name (all upper-case)
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".[5] 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, theUnited Kingdom is officially assigned the alpha-2 codeGB rather thanUK, based on its official name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (althoughUK isreserved on the request of the United Kingdom). Some codes are chosen based on the native names of the countries. For example, Germany is assigned the alpha-2 codeDE, based on its native name "Deutschland".
The complete ISO 3166-1 list of countries and their assigned codes,[13] listed in alphabetical order by the country's English short name used by the ISO 3166/MA:
Each country'salpha-2 code is linked to more information about the assignment of its code elements.
The officially assigned code elements may be expanded by using either reserved codes or user-assigned codes.[1]
Reserved code elements are codes which have become obsolete, are used in other coding systems such asWIPO 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: (follow the links for the reserved codes of each category)
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 when updating the standard. These codes can be user-assigned:[14]
The ISO 3166/MA updates ISO 3166-1 when necessary. A country is normally 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 country names that have been deleted from ISO 3166-1 are published inISO 3166-3.
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.[16]
Edition/Newsletter
Date issued
Contents
ISO 3166:1974
1974
First edition of ISO 3166
ISO 3166:1981
1981
Second edition of ISO 3166
ISO 3166:1988
1988-08-15
Third edition of ISO 3166
ISO 3166:1994
1994-02-10
Fourth edition of ISO 3166
ISO 3166-1:1997
1997-09-25
First edition of ISO 3166-1 (ISO 3166 expanded into three parts)
Third edition of ISO 3166-1 (changes are published in theonline catalogue of ISO only and no newsletters are published anymore).Archived 2022-10-21 at theWayback Machine
^"ISO 3166 information for PS". International Organization for Standardization.Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved2021-09-27.Remark: Conventional names.
^"ISO 3166 information for EH". International Organization for Standardization.Archived from the original on 2016-06-17. Retrieved2021-09-27.Remark: Provisional name
