ISO 3166-1 alpha-2

A map of Europe, with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes in place of the names of countries and other territories

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 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).^[1] 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

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.^[9] 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 reserved and not used at the present stage in ISO 3166-1.^[10]

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.^[11] This notwithstanding, the Official Journal of the European Communities specified that GR and GB be used to represent the 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 (like it 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.^[14]

Click on the cell to see the definition of each code.

Officially assigned code elements

The following is a complete list of the 263 current officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, with the following columns:

• Code — ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code
• Country name — English short country name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)^[15]
• Year — Year when alpha-2 code was first officially assigned (1974, first edition of ISO 3166)
• ccTLD — Corresponding country code top-level domain (note that some are inactive); exceptions where another ccTLD is assigned for the country are shown in parentheses
• ISO 3166-2 — Corresponding ISO 3166-2 codes
• Notes — Any unofficial notes

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. For example:

• UN/LOCODE assigns XZ to represent installations in international waters.^[8]
• The Heard Island and McDonald Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the French Southern Territories, and the United States Minor Outlying Islands), QU to represent the European Union, and ZZ to represent "Unknown or Invalid Territory".^[18]
• The code XK is being used by the Kosovo.^[23]
• The code XN is being used by the [24]

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 and/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

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 WIPO Standard ST.3:

WIPO Standard ST.3 actually uses EA, instead of EV, to represent the

ISO standards by standard number List of ISO standards / ISO romanizations / IEC standards 1–9999 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9 16 31 -0 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 128 216 217 226 228 233 259 269 302 306 428 518 519 639 -1 -2 -3 -5 -6 646 690 732 764 843 898 965 1000 1004 1007 1073-1 1413 1538 1745 1989 2014 2015 2022 2047 2108 2145 2146 2240 2281 2709 2711 2788 2852 3029 3103 3166 -1 -2 -3 3297 3307 3602 3864 3901 3977 4031 4157 4217 4909 5218 5428 5775 5776 5800 5964 6166 6344 6346 6385 6425 6429 6438 6523 6709 7001 7002 7098 7185 7200 7498 7736 7810 7811 7812 7813 7816 8000 8178 8217 8571 8583 8601 8632 8652 8691 8807 8820-5 8859 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -8-I -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 -15 -16 8879 9000/9001 9075 9126 9293 9241 9362 9407 9506 9529 9564 9594 9660 9897 9945 9984 9985 9995 10000–19999 10006 10116 10118-3 10160 10161 10165 10179 10206 10218 10303 -11 -21 -22 -28 -238 10383 10487 10585 10589 10646 10664 10746 10861 10957 10962 10967 11073 11170 11179 11404 11544 11783 11784 11785 11801 11898 11940 (-2) 11941 11941 (TR) 11992 12006 12182 12207 12234-2 13211 -1 -2 13216 13250 13399 13406-2 13407 13450 13485 13490 13567 13568 13584 13616 14000 14031 14224 14289 14396 14443 14496 -2 -3 -6 -10 -11 -12 -14 -17 -20 14644 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 14649 14651 14698 -2 14750 14764 14882 14971 15022 15189 15288 15291 15292 15398 15408 15444 -3 15445 15438 15504 15511 15686 15693 15706 -2 15707 15897 15919 15924 15926 15926 WIP 15930 16023 16262 16612-2 16750 16949 (TS) 17024 17025 17203 17369 17799 18000 18004 18014 18245 18629 18916 19005 19011 19092 (-1 -2) 19114 19115 19125 19136 19439 19500 19501 19502 19503 19505 19506 19507 19508 19509 19510 19600 19752 19757 19770 19775-1 19794-5 19831 20000+ 20000 20022 20121 21000 21047 21500 21827:2002 22000 23270 23271 23360 24517 24613 24617 24707 25178 25964 26000 26300 26324 27000 series 27000 27001:2005 27001:2013 27002 27003 27004 27005 27006 27007 27729 27799 28000 29110 29148 29199-2 29500 30170 31000 32000 38500 40500 42010 80000 -1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12 -13 -14 Categories ISO standards ISO 639 ISO 3166 ISO / IEC standards OSI protocols

• ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
  • Country names and code elements — list of alpha-2 codes
    • Text file (English)
    • XML file (English)
  • Reserved code elements under ISO 3166-1 "Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes", available on request from ISO 3166/MA
• The World Factbook (public domain), Central Intelligence Agency
  • Appendix D – Cross-Reference List of Country Data Codes — comparison of FIPS 10, ISO 3166, and STANAG 1059 country codes
• Core Datasets Project ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 English country names and code elements (HTML, CSV, JSON)
  • Core Datasets Project Comprehensive country codes: ISO 3166, ITU, ISO 4217 currency codes and many more (HTML, CSV, JSON)
• Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids"), Statoids.com
  • Country codes — comparison of ISO 3166-1 country codes with other country codes
  • ISO 3166-1 Change History

Sources and external links

1. ^
2. ^
3. ^
4. ^
5. ^
6. ^
7. ^
8. ^ ^{a b}
9. ^
10. ^
11. ^
12. ^
13. ^
14. ^
15. ^
16. ^ ^{a b}
17. ^ ^{a b}
18. ^
19. ^
20. ^ http://www.ezv.admin.ch/pdf_linker.php?doc=Tares_Laenderverzeichnis
21. ^
22. ^ SWIFT: IBAN Registry, Release 50, September 2014
23. ^
24. ^
25. ^

References

• List of FIPS country codes in FIPS 10-4, part of the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS)
• The Regional Indicator Symbol in Unicode, introduced to use these codes
• CSV Export of ISO 3166-1 alpha2 from datahub.io

See also

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.

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:^[25]

Deleted codes

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