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., pro ...

standard published by the

International Organization for Standardization The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ; ; ) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries. M ...

(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 communicati ...

s for identifying the principal subdivisions (e.g.,

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

s or

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

s) of all

countries A country is a distinct part of the Earth, world, such as a state (polity), state, nation, or other polity, political entity. When referring to a specific polity, the term "country" may refer to a sovereign state, List of states with limited r ...

coded in

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

. 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 divisions (also administrative units, administrative regions, subnational entities, or constituent states, as well as many similar generic terms) are geographical areas into which a particular independent sovereign state is divi ...

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 and remains politically outside the control ...

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 ...

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 5,046 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,Not including dependent territories of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, or the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, nor

Bouvet Island Bouvet Island ( ; ) is an uninhabited subantarctic volcanic island and dependency of Norway. It is a protected nature reserve, and situated in the South Atlantic Ocean at the southern end of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, it is the world's most extre ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. a number of their subdivisions in ISO 3166-2, most of them

, 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.

References

External links

ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) *
Country codes—Online Browsing Platform
{{DEFAULTSORT:Iso 3166-2 Country subdivision codes 2 ISO 3166-2