Review of Content StandardCodes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions
ISO 3166
June, 2005
This review is intended to assess the potential utility of content standards for use and potentially for inclusion in an ISO 11179-based metadata registry. The review is directed primarily toward the utility of the standard itself, rather than to matching the standard with specific agency programs. The review covers issues such as the subject area, currency, quality, authority, and acceptance of the standards. These are factors that need to be taken into account no matter what the programmatic application of the standard may be.
1. Summary
ISO 3166 is the International Standard for country codes. It is a three-part standard. Under the general title of Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions ISO publishes:
ISO 3166-1:1997 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 1: Country codes which is what most users know as ISO's country codes. First published in 1974, it is has since then become one of the world's most popular and most widely used standard solution for coding country names. It contains a two-letter code, which is recommended as the general-purpose code, a three-letter code, which has better mnemonic properties, and a numeric-3 code, which can be useful if script independence of the codes is important.
ISO 3166-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 2: Country subdivision code which gives codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1. This code is based on the two-letter code element from ISO 3166-1 followed by a separator and a further string of up to three alphanumeric characters.
ISO 3166-3:1999 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries which contains a four-letter code for those country names which have been deleted from ISO 3166-1 since its first publication in 1974. The code elements for formerly used country names have a length of four alphabetical characters (alpha-4 code elements).
These three related documents taken together make up ISO 3166. ISO 3166-1 is by far the most important of the three standards.
2. Identification of Standard
2.1. Title
Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions
ISO 3166-1:1997 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 1: Country codes
ISO 3166-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 2: Country subdivision code
ISO 3166-3:1999 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions - Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries
2.2. Acronym
None
2.3. Web page(s), Identifier, or Contact Information:
2.3.1 Web page(s)
http://www.iso.org
2.3.2 Identifier
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/02iso-3166-code-lists/index.html
2.3.3 Contact Information
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/ISOOnline.frontpage
2.4 Authority
2.4.1 Creator
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
Maintenance Authority: the ISO3166/MA Secretariat:
ISO 3166/MA members
The composition of the ISO 3166/MA reflects the two stakeholder groups, which were primarily involved in the development of ISO 3166 in the early 1970s: national standards organizations, members of ISO, and United Nations agencies.
Of the ten experts with voting rights on the ISO 3166/MA five are representatives of the following national standards organizations:
· Association française de normalisation AFNOR (France)
· American National Standards Institute ANSI (United States)
· British Standards Institution BSI (United Kingdom)
· Deutsches Institut für Normung DIN (Germany)
· Swedish Standards Institute SIS (Sweden)
The other five are representatives of major UN or other international organizations who are all users of ISO 3166-1:
· International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
· International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
· Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
· Universal Postal Union (UPU)
· United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE)
The ISO 3166/MA has further associated members who do not participate in the votes but who - through their expertise - have significant influence on the decision taking procedure in the maintenance agency.
2.4.2. Acceptance as authoritative
Very well accepted.
2.5 Publisher
International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
2.6 Language(s)
The country names are available in both French and English.
3. Content description
3.1 Subject area of content and area of application
ISO 3166 is used by many of today's computerized systems which store and process information related to countries and country names. Applications using ISO 3166-1 can communicate easily. This is one of the purposes of standardization: facilitation of the exchange of goods and information. Here are some examples of use:
· All national postal organizations in the world exchange international mail between them in containers carrying ISO 3166-1 codes for identification of the country of destination.
· In machine-readable passports the three letter code of ISO 3166-1 is used to determine the nationality of the user (ISO/IEC 7501-1).
· Currencies are identified by a code based on the ISO 3166-1, which identifies them in international transactions (ISO 4217).
· The International Securities Identification Number (ISO 6166) is a system that allows precise identification of shares issued in one country but traded internationally.
· The Internet domain name system uses ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes to define country-coded Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs), e.g., for the countries France, South Africa, Australia, Brazil, Japan; ".fr", ”.za", ".au", ".br", or ".jp".
3.2 Kind of content
Part 1: Country codes contains names (text) and 3 code formats;
Part 2: Country subdivision code contains names (text) and one code format;
Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries contains names (text) and one code format.
3.3 Audience(s)
The audience is potentially anyone exchanging data about countries and their subdivisions. See the examples in 3.1.
3.4 Related Standards
See the Cmap “Geographic Standards.” Also, many other standards incorporate ISO 3166 codes by reference (see 3.1).
3.5 Standards Dependencies
See 3.4. This standard does not depend on any other standard; dependencies of other standards on ISO 3166 will be noted in their Reviews as appropriate.
3.6 Content Quality
ISO 3166 contains some entries that are not strictly defined as “countries,” and therefore some users consider it flawed. However, it does contain a complete set of countries.
4. Currency of Content
4.1 Date
Last update issued 2004-04-28
4.2 Versions, Updates
The standard is updated as needed. Newsletters are issued and the online version is updated when any country identification changes.
4.3 Currency
The standard currently reflects reality.
5. Acceptance
The acceptance that an International Standard has gained within its potential user community can be seen from the number or scale of its applications. Below is a very short selection of applications of ISO 3166-1, which can be seen on the World Wide Web.
· UN/LOCODE, Recommendation 16 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, used in international trade to code ports, customs offices and other sites relevant in trade, has code elements that all incorporate the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code element of the country the site is located in.
· The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations Specialized Agency, encodes "states, other entities and intergovernmental organizations" in its ST.3 standard with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2-Code.
· The code elements from ISO 4217 Codes for the representation of currencies and funds are based on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2-code, e.g., USD for US Dollar where US comes from ISO 3166-1.
· The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) uses the alpha-2 code in its INIS-Database (International Nuclear Information System) providing information on the peaceful use of nuclear science and technology.
· IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, uses the alpha-2 code to identify the Internet ccTLDs (country code Top-Level Domains) like ".fr", ".eg" or ".jp".
· Federal Express uses IATA country codes, which are those of ISO 3166-1, to help their customers track shipments they made with FedEx.
· The UN Food an Agricultural Organization (FAO) uses ISO 3166-1 in its International Bibliographic Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology (AGRIS).
· The World Ozone and Ultraviolet Radiation Data Centre (WOUDC), part of the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) program within the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and operated by the Meteorological Services of Canada (MSC), are using ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes to identify the country in which measuring stations are located.
· The European Union uses ISO 3166-1 in the Geonomenclature of the EU Statistical Office. The Geonomenclature, which is important for external trade statistics, can be downloaded from the External trade pages of EUROSTAT. You may download the geonomenclature directly from here.
6. Content details
6.1 Size statistics (estimated)
· English country names and code elements:
HTML, 60 KB
· TXT, semicolon delimited, 5 KB
· XML, zipped file, 3 KB
· French country names and code elements:
HTML, 60 KB
· TXT, semicolon delimited, 5 KB
· XML, zipped file, 3 KB
See:ISO 3166-1 decoding table (HTML, 176 KB)
Also see:Microsoft® Access 2000 database products of the complete lists of codes and names from ISO 3166-1 (the country codes) and ISO 3166-2 (the country subdivision codes).
6.2 Format / Schemas(s)
See above.
6.3 Media / Download
ISO 3166-1 and ISO 3166-2 databases
The content of the list parts of both ISO 3166-1 "Country codes" and ISO 3166-2 "Country subdivision code" is available from the ISO 3166/MA secretariat in the form of two Microsoft® Access 2000 databases. Descriptions of the products are given here:
· ISO 3166-1 database (list part)
· ISO 3166-2 database (list part)
· Updating information for the databases
Each database costs as much as the PDF version of the standard. A package containing the ISO standard in PDF format and the corresponding database costs about 25% less than both products purchased separately.
Add to shopping basket / Price (CHF)/ ISO 3166-1 database Microsoft Access format) / 152.00
/ ISO 3166-1 database (Microsoft Access format)+ISO 3166-1:1997 PDF version (en/fr) / 224.00
/ ISO 3166-2 database (Microsoft Access format) / 200.00
/ ISO 3166-2 database (Microsoft Access format)+ISO 3166-2:1998 PDF version (en/fr) / 296.00
You can order the standards without the database files here.
6.4 Licensing Issues
Copies of the 3166-1 code list are available for sale or for free download (see 6.1). Copies of 3166-2 and 3166-3 are for sale only. No licensing issues identified.
6.5 Documentation
Extensive documentation is available at the website:
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/04background-on-iso-3166/index.html