ISO 3166 is an international standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines globally recognized codes for the names of countries, their subdivisions, and formerly used country names. It provides a uniform way to represent country identities and administrative regions, avoiding confusion from language differences or name variations across borders.
The standard is divided into three parts:
ISO 3166-1: Country codes
This part assigns codes to countries, dependent territories, and special geopolitical areas. It includes three sets of codes:Alpha-2 codes: Two-letter codes widely used for internet country codes (e.g., ".fr" for France) and general-purpose applications.
Alpha-3 codes: Three-letter codes visually linked to country names for easier recognition.
Numeric codes: Three-digit codes identical to those from the United Nations Statistics Division, useful for systems using non-Latin scripts.
ISO 3166-2: Subdivision codes
This part defines codes for principal subdivisions like provinces, states, or regions of countries included in ISO 3166-1. Subdivision codes combine the country alpha-2 code with up to three additional characters (e.g., ID-RI for the Riau province of Indonesia).ISO 3166-3: Former country codes
This part includes codes for countries or territories that have been removed from ISO 3166-1 due to political changes, such as dissolved states or renamed countries.
The ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency oversees updates to these codes to keep the standard current. The codes are essential for international communication, logistics, trade, finance, travel, and digital technologies by providing consistent identifiers that transcend languages and scripts.
The standard facilitates interoperability in global systems such as postal services, internet domains, banking, and passports, making it indispensable for worldwide data exchange and administration.
The full list of country codes can be accessed here: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#search/code/
Sample files can be found here: https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:pub:PUB500001:en
Learn more:
https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html