ISO 3166-2 is part of the
ISO 3166
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., ...
standard Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object th ...
published by the
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
(ISO), and defines
code
In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ...
s for identifying the principal
subdivision
Subdivision may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Subdivision (metre), in music
* ''Subdivision'' (film), 2009
* "Subdivision", an episode of ''Prison Break'' (season 2)
* ''Subdivisions'' (EP), by Sinch, 2005
* "Subdivisions" (song), by Rus ...
s (e.g.,
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
s or
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
s) of all
countries
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, so ...
coded in
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 ...
. The official name of the standard is ''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 2: Country subdivision code''. It was first published in 1998.
The purpose of ISO 3166-2 is to establish an international standard of short and unique alphanumeric codes to represent the relevant
administrative division
Administrative division, administrative unit,Article 3(1). country subdivision, administrative region, subnational entity, constituent state, as well as many similar terms, are generic names for geographical areas into which a particular, ind ...
s and
dependent territories
A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency (sometimes referred as an external territory) is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state, yet remains politically outside the controlli ...
of all countries in a more convenient and less ambiguous form than their full names. Each complete ISO 3166-2 code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen:
* The first part is 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 ...
code of the country;
* The second part is a string of up to three alphanumeric characters, which is usually obtained from national sources and stems from coding systems already in use in the country concerned, but may also be developed by the ISO itself.
Each complete ISO 3166-2 code can then be used to uniquely identify a country subdivision in a global context.
there are 5,043 codes defined in ISO 3166-2. For some countries, codes are defined for more than one level of subdivisions.
Current codes
The following table can be used to access the current ISO 3166-2 codes of each country, and comprises three columns:
* Entry: ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, click to view the ISO 3166-2 codes of the country
* Country name: English short name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
* Subdivisions assigned codes: Number and category of subdivisions assigned codes in ISO 3166-2;
if there are more than one level of subdivisions, the first-level subdivisions are shown in ''italics''
Subdivisions included in ISO 3166-1
For the following countries, a number of their subdivisions in ISO 3166-2, most of them
dependent territories
A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency (sometimes referred as an external territory) is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state, yet remains politically outside the controlli ...
, are also officially assigned their own country codes in ISO 3166-1:
; Notes
Format
The format of the ISO 3166-2 codes is different for each country. The codes may be alphabetic, numeric, or alphanumeric, and they may also be of constant or variable length. The following is a table of the ISO 3166-2 codes of each country (those with codes defined), grouped by their format:
Changes
The ISO 3166/MA updates ISO 3166-2 when necessary. Changes in ISO 3166-2 consist mostly of spelling corrections, addition and deletion of subdivisions, and modification of the administrative structure.
ISO used to announce changes in newsletters which updated the currently valid standard, and releasing new editions which comprise a consolidation of newsletter changes. As of July 2013, changes are published in the online catalogue of ISO only and no newsletters are published anymore. Past newsletters remain available on the ISO website.
See also
*
International Organization for Standardization
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Ar ...
**
ISO 3166
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., ...
***
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 ...
*** ISO 3166-2
***
ISO 3166-3
ISO 3166-3 is part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and defines codes for country names which have been deleted from ISO 3166-1 since its first publication in 1974. The official name of ...
**
List of ISO 3166 country codes
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) created and maintains the ISO 3166 standard – ''Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions''. The ISO 3166 standard contains three parts:
* ISO 3166-1 ...
*
Lists of countries and territories
This is a list of lists of countries and territories by various criteria. A country or territory is a geographical area, either in the sense of ''nation'' (a cultural entity) or ''state'' (a political entity).The Oxford English Dictionary, Second ...
**
Sovereign state
A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a polity, political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defin ...
***
List of sovereign states
The following is a list providing an overview of sovereign states around the world with information on their status and recognition of their sovereignty.
The 206 listed states can be divided into three categories based on membership withi ...
***
List of states with limited recognition
A number of polities have declared independence and sought diplomatic recognition from the international community as sovereign states, but have not been universally recognised as such. These entities often have ''de facto'' control of thei ...
**
Dependent territory
A dependent territory, dependent area, or dependency (sometimes referred as an external territory) is a territory that does not possess full political independence or sovereignty as a sovereign state, yet remains politically outside the controlli ...
*
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
**
Member states of the United Nations
The United Nations member states are the sovereign states that are members of the United Nations (UN) and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The UN is the world's largest intergovernmental organization.
The criteria ...
**
United Nations list of non-self-governing territories
Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter defines a non-self-governing territory (NSGT) as a territory "whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government". In practice, an NSGT is a territory deemed by the United Nations Gener ...
*
Geocode
A geocode is a code that represents a geographic entity (location or object). It is a unique identifier of the entity, to distinguish it from others in a finite set of geographic entities. In general the ''geocode'' is a human-readable and ...
References
External links
ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
*
Country codes—Online Browsing Platform
Other lists of ISO 3166-2 codes (not necessarily up to date)
Many of the lists below are based on outdated versions of ISO 3166-2 codes. The latest version may be obtained from the ISO 3166/MA.
List of Countries with ISO 2 Digit codes—DataHub Core Data GEFEG.FX
* .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iso 3166-2
Country subdivision codes
2
ISO 3166-2