Country code
Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric
geographical codes (
geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The most famous of these is
ISO 3166-1. The term
country code frequently refers to international dialing codes, the
E.164 country calling codes.
A -
B -
C -
D-E -
F -
G -
H-I -
J-K -
L -
M -
N -
O-R -
S -
T -
U-ZMain article: ISO 3166-1
This standard defines for most of the countries and dependent areas in the world:
*a two letter (
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2)
*a three-letter (
ISO 3166-1 alpha-3), and
*a three-digit numeric (
ISO 3166-1 numeric) code.
The two-letter codes are used as the basis for some other codes or applications, e.g.
*for
ISO 4217 currency codes and
*with deviations for country code
top-level domain names (ccTLDs) on the Internet:
list of Internet TLDs.For more applications see
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.
*The
International Olympic Committee (IOC) three letter codes used in sporting events:
list of IOC country codes*The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (
FIFA) assigns a three-letter code (dubbed FIFA Trigramme) to each of its member and non-member countries:
List of FIFA country codes*The
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) used two-letter codes of its own:
list of NATO country codes. They were largely borrowed from the FIPS 10-4 codes mentioned below. In
2003, the eighth edition of the Standardisation Agreement (STANAG) adopted the ISO 3166 three-letter codes with one exception (the code for Macedonia). With the ninth edition, NATO is transitioning to four- and six-letter codes based on ISO 3166 with a few exceptions and additions.
*The coding system for car
license plates under the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Road Traffic Conventions (distinguishing signs of vehicles in international traffic):
List of international license plate codes [
1]
*The
United Nations Development Program (UNDP) also has its own list of
trigram country codes.
*The
Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) two letter codes used by the
US government and in the
CIA World Factbook:
list of FIPS country codes, See also
List of FIPS region codes for a set of 4-character region codes, also assigned by FIPS.
*The coding system for
diplomatic license plates in the United States, assigned by the
U.S. State Department.
*From the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU):
**the
E.164 international dialling codes:
list of country calling codes with 1-3 digits,
**the
E.212 mobile country codes (MCC), for mobile/wireless phone addresses,
**the first few characters of call signs of radio stations (maritime, aeronautical,
amateur radio, broadcasting, etc.) define the country: the
ITU prefix,
**
ITU letter codes for member-countries,
**Three-digit codes used to identify countries in maritime mobile radio transmissions, known as
maritime identification digits*
European Union:
**Before the
2004 EU enlargement the EU used the UN Road Traffic Conventions
license plate codes; since then, it uses
ISO 3166-1, with 2 exceptions:
EL (not
GR) is used for
Greece, and
UK (not
GB) is used for the
United Kingdom.
EU Interinstitutional style guide**The
Nomenclature des unités territoriales statistiques (Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics, NUTS) of the
European Union, mostly focusing on subdivisions of the EU member states
*From the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO):
**
aircraft registration prefixes,
**nationality letters for location indicators.
The developers of ISO 3166 intended that in time it would replace other coding systems in existence.
The following can represent countries:
*The initial digits of International Standard Book Numbers (
ISBN) are group identifiers for countries, areas, or language regions.
*The first three digits of
GS1 Company Prefixes used to identify products, e.g. in
barcodes, designate (national) numbering agencies.
*
language code*
numbering scheme*
ISO 639 language codes
*Comparison of various systems: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/codes/country.htm
*Another comparison: http://www.statoids.com/wab.html
*
list with flags*
United Nations Region Codes
