The country code table includes the WITS System country names for statistical purposes and both the International Standards Organization (ISO) 3-digit alphabetic codes and the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) 3-digit equivalent numeric codes. 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” (although UK is reserved on the request of the United Kingdom). For example, Germany is assigned the alpha-2 code DE, based on its native name “Deutschland”.

Overall, ISO 3166 country codes provide a standardized way to refer to countries and their subdivisions in a variety of contexts. They are widely used in international trade, logistics, and other fields that require clear and unambiguous identification of countries. The International Organization for Standardization has other country codes. Somewhat impractical, due to hardly being legible, is the numeric variant, such as 840 for the United States. It is almost only used in information technology, where it is no longer important that the code be human readable.

Deleted codes

It contains the codes from Parts 1, 2 and 3 of ISO 3166 in three different formats (.xml, .csv, and .xls) for easy integration into your own systems. You will be notified when changes are made so you can download the latest versions. In this way, you can be sure that your database is always using the most up-to-date information from ISO. © All Rights Reserved All ISO publications and materials are protected by copyright and are subject to the user’s acceptance of ISO’s conditions of copyright. Read more about the different types of codes in the Glossary for ISO 3166. The information on the OBP is always up to date and you can sign up for notifications to be informed when changes are made by clicking on the follow function in the top right-hand corner.

Olympic country codes

ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. These codes are typically two or three letters long and are used in various applications, such as international trade, customs clearance, and transportation. ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states). The official name of the standard is Codes for the iso 3166 country code of india representation of names of countries and their subdivisions. However, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency may assign country codes to dependencies of countries that are member states of the UN.

Officially assigned code elements

The European IBAN system for bank account numbers also uses this code. ISO 3166 is an international standard which defines codes representing names of countries and their subdivisions. The standard specifies basic guidelines for the implementation and maintenance of country and subdivisions codes.

1. We also have a product, the Country Codes Collection, which you can preview free of charge on the OBP (where you will also find a decoding table).
2. Read more about the different types of codes in the Glossary for ISO 3166.
3. This part of the standard defines codes for countries that have been replaced or renamed.
4. ISO allows free-of-charge use of its country, currency and language codes from ISO 3166, ISO 4217 and ISO 639, respectively.
5. Another advantage is that when countries merge or split, they will get a new numeric code, while the alphabetic code stays in use for (a part of) that country.

Most people refer to ISO 3166, but actually it is divided into three parts. The purpose of ISO 3166 is to define internationally recognized codes of letters and/or numbers that we can use when we refer to countries and their subdivisions. However, it does not define the names of countries – this information comes from United Nations sources (Terminology Bulletin Country Names and the Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use maintained by the United Nations Statistics Divisions). If a country changes its name without any territorial change, its numeric code remains the same. For example, when Burma was renamed Myanmar without territorial change in 1989, its alphabetic codes were changed, but its numeric code 104 has remained the same. Following notification from the United Nations (UN), the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency assigns alpha-2 and alpha-3 country code elements to new UN member states.

To be considered, some criteria, amongst others, include that the area be physically separated from its parent country and outside its territorial waters. Even if all criteria are met, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency may decide not to assign a code element, for example, due to the very limited number of official alpha-2 code elements available. For example, all national postal organizations throughout the world exchange international mail in containers identified with the relevant country code. Internet domain name systems use the codes to define top-level domain names such as “.fr” for France, “.au” for Australia. In addition, in machine-readable passports, the codes are used to determine the nationality of the user and, when we send money from one bank to another, the country codes are a way to identify where the bank is based.