' (DIN; in English, the German Institute for Standardisation) is a German non-profit organization and acting as national organization for

standardization Standardization (American English) or standardisation (British English) is the process of implementing and developing technical standards based on the consensus of different parties that include firms, users, interest groups, standards organiza ...

. DIN is the German

ISO 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. Me ...

member body. DIN is headquartered in

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. There are around thirty thousand DIN Standards, covering nearly every field of technology.

History

Founded in 1917 as the ' (NADI, "Standardisation Committee of German Industry"), the NADI was renamed ' (DNA, "German Standardisation Committee") in 1926 to reflect that the organization now dealt with standardization issues in many fields; viz., not just for industrial products. In 1975 it was renamed again to ', or 'DIN' and is recognised by the German government as the official national-standards body, representing German interests at the international and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

an levels. The

acronym An acronym is a type of abbreviation consisting of a phrase whose only pronounced elements are the initial letters or initial sounds of words inside that phrase. Acronyms are often spelled with the initial Letter (alphabet), letter of each wor ...

, 'DIN' is often incorrectly expanded as ' ("German Industry Standard"). This is largely due to the historic origin of the DIN as "NADI". The NADI indeed published their standards as ' ('). For example, the first published standard was '' (about tapered pins) in 1918. Many people still mistakenly associate DIN with the old ' naming convention. One of the earliest, and probably the best known, is DIN 476 — the standard that introduced the A-series paper sizes in 1922 — adopted in 1975 as International Standard

ISO 216 ISO 216 is an international standard for paper sizes, used around the world except in North America and parts of Latin America. The standard defines the "A", "B" and "C" series of paper sizes, which includes the A4, the most commonly availabl ...

. Common examples in modern technology include DIN and mini-DIN connectors for electronics, and the DIN rail. DIN SPEC 3105, published in 2020, is "the first German standard to be published under an open license ( CC-BY-SA 4.0) ..to implement an open standardisation process".

DIN organisation

DIN is a nonprofit organization by German law. The nonprofit owns ''DIN Solutions GmbH'', which produces the DIN contents and ''DIN Media'' (formerly ''Beuth Verlag''), which sells the DIN-standard manuals. DIN is shareholder of ''DIN Bauportal GmbH'' and ''DQS Holding GmbH''.

DIN standard designation

The designation of a DIN standard shows its origin (# denotes a number): * ''DIN #'' is used for German standards with primarily domestic significance or designed as a first step toward international status. ''E DIN #'' is a draft standard and ''DIN V #'' is a preliminary standard. *''DIN EN #'' is used for the German edition of European standards. *''DIN ISO #'' is used for the German edition of ISO standards. *''DIN EN ISO #'' is used if the standard has also been adopted as a European standard., Some of the DIN standards date back to the time of

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

. For example, standard DIN 5009, which describes the German Phonetic spelling code, is based on the postal spelling table, that was heavily edited by the Nazis. Until 1934 it specified "D" for David, "S" for Samuel, "Z" for Zacharias and "N" for Nathan. However, this went against the Nazis' ethnic-racial ideology and they decided to revise the letter board. The postal spelling table was partially revised in 1950 and formed the basis for the first version of the standard in 1983. The standard was revised again in 2022, using city names instead of person names.

Examples of DIN standards

* DIN 476: international paper sizes (now

or DIN EN ISO 216) * DIN 1451:

typeface A typeface (or font family) is a design of Letter (alphabet), letters, Numerical digit, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size (e.g., 24 point), weight (e.g., light, ...

used by German

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

s and on

traffic sign Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones. Later, signs with directional arms were introduc ...

s * DIN 31635:

transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus '' trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → and → the digraph , Cyrillic → , Armenian → or L ...

of the

Arabic language Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

* DIN 41612: mechanical standard for

backplane A backplane or backplane system is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors, forming a computer bus. It is used to connect s ...

electrical connection * DIN 72552: electric terminal numbers in

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

Access to standards

DIN standards are not freely accessible to the public. DIN sells subscriptions with the descriptions of the DIN-standards via DIN ''Solutions GmbH'' and ''DIN Media''. For four EN standards, which are available as DIN-EN standards for a fee from DIN Media GmbH (formerly Beuth Verlag), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided on March 5, 2024 in the Malamud decision, that these must be made available free of charge because these standards are part of European Union law.

Critics

How DIN creates standards is not transparent. The majority of the standardization committees consist of representatives of the companies that are affected by the standards. DIN does not publish the names of committee members. In 2023, the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building launched an initiative to question DIN standards because they are considered a cost driver. “A central goal is to speed up planning and construction and reduce construction costs in order to create more affordable housing. “The building standards are now being reviewed,” said a spokesman for Klara Geywitz's (SPD) ministry in 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Deutsches Institut fur Normung ISO member bodies Organizations established in 1917 1917 establishments in Germany