The FIPS 10-4 standard, ''Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions'', was a list of two-letter country codes that were used by the U.S. Government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the '' CIA World Factbook''. The standard was also known as

DAFIF DAFIF () or the ''Digital Aeronautical Flight Information File'' is a comprehensive database of up-to-date aeronautical data, including information on airports, airways, airspaces, navigation data, and other facts relevant to flying in the entire w ...

0413 ed 7 Amdt. No. 3 (November 2003) and as DIA 65-18 (

Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense, specializing in defense and military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense (DoD) and the I ...

, 1994, "Geopolitical Data Elements and Related Features"). The FIPS 10-4 codes are similar to (but sometimes incompatible with) the

ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of ...

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 term ...

s. The standard also includes codes for the top-level subdivision of the countries, similar to but usually incompatible with the

ISO 3166-2 ISO 3166-2 is part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and defines codes for identifying the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1. The ...

standard.

History

On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. The

National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national ...

continued to maintain the FIPS 10-4 codes in an informal document titled "Geopolitical Entities and Codes" (GEC) until December 31, 2014, retiring the GEC on March 31, 2015. On January 23, 2013, the

U.S. Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secur ...

released the first edition of "Geopolitical Entities, Names and Codes" (GENC), a U.S. federal government profile of

ISO 3166-1 ISO 3166-1 (''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes'') is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It ...

and

. GENC is designed to be compatible with ISO 3166 but reflect U.S. government

diplomatic recognition Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral declarative political act of a state that acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state (may be also a recognized state). Recognition can be accorde ...

and naming decisions by the

U.S. Board on Geographic Names The United States Board on Geographic Names (BGN) is a federal body operating under the United States Secretary of the Interior. The purpose of the board is to establish and maintain uniform usage of geographic names throughout the federal govern ...

; it is intended to be the basis for a future U.S. national profile of the ISO standards.

References

{{reflist

History

See also

References