A map of Europe, with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes in place of the full names of countries and other territories. 'Exceptional reservations' codes CQ, EU and UK are not shown.
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166standard[1] published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. They are the most widely used of the country codes published by ISO (the others being alpha-3 and numeric), and are used most prominently for the Internet's country code top-level domains (with a few exceptions). They are also used as country identifiers extending the postal code when appropriate within the international postal system for paper mail, and have replaced the previous one consisting one-letter codes. They were first included as part of the ISO 3166 standard in its first edition in 1974.
Uses and applications
The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are used in different environments and are also part of other standards. In some cases they are not perfectly implemented.
Perfect implementations
The ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are used in the following standards:
IETF language tags (conforming to the BCP 47 standard track and maintained in an IANA registry) are also partially derived from ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes (for the region subtags). The full list of ISO 3166-1 codes assigned to countries and territories are usable as region subtags. Also, the "exceptionally reserved" alpha-2 codes defined in ISO 3166-1 (with the exception of UK) are also usable as region subtags for language tags. However, newer stability policies (agreed with ISO) have been implemented to avoid deleting subtags that have been withdrawn in ISO 3166-1; instead they are kept and aliased to the new preferred subtags, or kept as subtags grouping several countries. Some other region grouping subtags are derived from other standards. Under the newer stability policies, old assigned codes that have been withdrawn from ISO 3166-1 should no longer be reassigned to another country or territory (as has occurred in the past for "CS").
Current codes
Decoding table
The following is a colour-coded decoding table of all ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes.
Unassigned: free for assignment by the ISO 3166/MA only
676
Overall total
Officially assigned code elements
The following is a complete list of the 249 current officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes, with the following columns:[1]
Code: ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, pointing to its ISO 3166-2 article
Country name: English short name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
Year: Year when alpha-2 code was first officially assigned (1974, first edition of ISO 3166)
ccTLD: Corresponding country code top-level domain (some are unassigned or inactive); exceptions where another ccTLD is assigned for the country are shown in parentheses
Code taken from previous ISO country name: Byelorussian SSR (now assigned ISO 3166-3 code BYAA) Code assigned as the country was already a UN member since 1945[14]
Includes Akrotiri and Dhekelia (Sovereign Base Areas) Code taken from Great Britain (from official name: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland)[16] Previous ISO country name: United Kingdom .uk is the primary ccTLD of the United Kingdom instead of .gb[17] (see code UK, which is exceptionally reserved)
Code taken from name in Macedonian: Severna Makedonija Previous ISO country name: Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of (designated as such due to Macedonia naming dispute)
Officially includes the islands Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba, which also have code BQ in ISO 3166-1. Within ISO 3166-2, Aruba (AW), Curaçao (CW), and Sint Maarten (SX) are also coded as subdivisions of NL.[18] Previous ISO country name: Netherlands
The United States Department of State uses the following user assigned alpha-2 codes for the nine territories, respectively, XB, XH, XQ, XU, XM, QM, XV, XL and QW.[20]
User-assigned code elements are codes at the disposal of users who need to add further names of countries, territories, or other geographical entities to their in-house application of ISO 3166-1, and the ISO 3166/MA will never use these codes in the updating process of the standard. The following alpha-2 codes can be user-assigned: AA, QM to QZ, XA to XZ, and ZZ.[21] For example:
The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) uses QM as a second country code for the United States, as it ran out of three-character registrant codes within the US prefix. It also uses ZZ for some registrants assigned directly.[22]
The code XN is being used by WIPO as an indicator for the Nordic Patent Institute, an international organization common to Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.[31]
Furthermore, the code element OO is designated as an escape code if the number of regular user-assigned code elements is not sufficient.[32]
Reserved code elements
Reserved code elements are codes which have become obsolete, or are required in order to enable a particular user application of the standard but do not qualify for inclusion in ISO 3166-1. To avoid transitional application problems and to aid users who require specific additional code elements for the functioning of their coding systems, the ISO 3166/MA, when justified, reserves these codes which it undertakes not to use for other than specified purposes during a limited or indeterminate period of time. The reserved alpha-2 codes can be divided into the following four categories: exceptional reservations, transitional reservations, indeterminate reservations, and codes currently agreed not to use.
Exceptional reservations
Exceptionally reserved code elements are codes reserved at the request of national ISO member bodies, governments and international organizations, which are required in order to support a particular application, as specified by the requesting body and limited to such use; any further use of such code elements is subject to approval by the ISO 3166/MA. The following alpha-2 codes are currently exceptionally reserved:
From June 2008; Transitionally reserved from September 1992 Officially assigned before deleted from ISO 3166-1 (now assigned ISO 3166-3 code SUHH) Official name and previous ISO country name:[34]Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (common name: Soviet Union)
Reserved on request of the United Kingdom lest UK be used for any other country Also used by the European Commission United Kingdom is officially assigned the alpha-2 code GB
Transitional reserved code elements are codes reserved after their deletion from ISO 3166-1. These codes may be used only during a transitional period of at least five years while new code elements that may have replaced them are taken into use. These codes may be reassigned by the ISO 3166/MA after the expiration of the transitional period. The following alpha-2 codes are currently transitionally reserved:
Code taken from name in Serbian: Srbija i Crna Gora, for Serbia and Montenegro, which however is now divided into Montenegro (ME) and Serbia (RS). (Though reserved, the ccTLD .cs was never actually assigned to Serbia and Montenegro; the ccTLD of Serbia and Montenegro was .yu, as that formerly unified country's name, and that of its larger predecessor, had previously been Yugoslavia.) CS originally represented Czechoslovakia. Its successor state Czechia uses CZ, and Slovakia SK.
For each deleted alpha-2 code, an entry for the corresponding former country name is included in ISO 3166-3. Each entry is assigned a four-letter alphabetic code, where the first two letters are the deleted alpha-2 code.
Indeterminate reservations
Indeterminately reserved code elements are codes used to designate road vehicles under the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Conventions on Road Traffic but differing from those contained in ISO 3166-1. These code elements are expected eventually to be either eliminated or replaced by code elements within ISO 3166-1. In the meantime, the ISO 3166/MA has reserved such code elements for an indeterminate period. Any use beyond the application of the two Conventions is discouraged and will not be approved by the ISO 3166/MA. Moreover, these codes may be reassigned by the ISO 3166/MA at any time. The following alpha-2 codes are currently indeterminately reserved:
^Code notified to United Nations Secretary-General under 1949 or 1968 Road Traffic Conventions. Previously used in international postal codes and vehicle registration codes to represent Finland (code was not officially assigned), and the code was previously listed as transitionally reserved from 1995-09 until 2012-06. Code taken from name in Finnish and Swedish combined: SuomiFinland.
Codes currently agreed not to use
In addition, the ISO 3166/MA will not use the following alpha-2 codes at the present stage, as they are used for international intellectual property organizations in WIPO Standard ST.3:
WIPO Standard ST.3 actually uses EA, instead of EV, to represent the Eurasian Patent Organization. However, EA was already exceptionally reserved by the ISO 3166/MA to represent Ceuta and Melilla for customs purposes. The ISO 3166/MA proposed in 1995 that EV be used by WIPO to represent the Eurasian Patent Organization; however, this request was not honoured by WIPO.
For each deleted alpha-2 code, an entry for the corresponding former country name is included in ISO 3166-3. Each entry is assigned a four-letter alphabetic code, where the first two letters are the deleted alpha-2 code.
Reserved code elements under ISO 3166-1 "Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes", available on request from ISO 3166/MA
