ISO 3166-2

ISO 3166-2 is the second part of the ISO 3166 standard. It is a geocode system created for coding the names of subdivisions of countries (subnational entities) and dependent areas. The purpose of the standard is to establish a worldwide series of short abbreviations for places, for use on package labels, containers, and such; anywhere where a short alphanumeric code can serve to clearly indicate a location in a more convenient and less ambiguous form than the full place name. There are around 3700 different codes.

1 Format
2 Changes / Editions
3 Decoding / Encoding lists
4 Format matrix with links to codes
5 See also
6 External links

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Format

ISO 3166-2 codes consist of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code element, the second is alphabetic or numeric and has one, two or three digits. The second part often is based on national standards.

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Changes / Editions

Changes were announced in different newsletters

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Decoding / Encoding lists

To find the ISO 3166-2 codes for each country see ISO 3166-1, a list of countries. If you are familiar with the two-letter country codes (similar to internet country codes) you can also use the format matrix given below.

Both ways would lead to articles like ISO 3166-2:XX, where XX stands for the ISO 3166-1 code, e.g. ISO 3166-2:AU leads to the code list for Australia.

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Format matrix with links to codes

Some of the codes are developed by ISO 3166/MA, these are copyrighted. Others are already in use in the specific countries.

length	Copyright	alpha	numeric	alpha-numeric
constant 1 char	Free:
	Partially free:
	ISO - Copyright:
	Unsorted:	AR, BO, CR, EC, FJ, GM, KI, KM, LS, LU, MG, NE, RW, SL, ST, TG, TM, VE	GA, IS, AT	PA
constant 2 chars	Free:	CH, US		FR
	Partially free:	AL, ID	TN
	ISO - Copyright:
	Unsorted:	AE, AM, BI, BJ, BN, BR, BS, BW, BY, CA, CD, CF, CL, CM, CV, CZ, DE, DJ, ER, ET, FI, GE, GH, GN, GT, GW, GY, HN, HT, HU, IN, IT, IQ, JO, KW, LA, LB, LR, LT, LV, LY, MD, MU, MW, NA, NG, NI, NL, NP, OM, PK, PL, QA, SB, SH, SK, SN, SO, SR, SV, SY, SZ, TJ, TL, UY, UZ, WS, YE, YU, ZA, ZW	BD, BG, BH, CI, CN, CU, CY, DO, DZ, EE, GR, HR, IR, JM, JP, KR, LK, MM, MY, NO, PT, SA, SD, TR, TZ, UA, UM, VN, ZM	BT
constant 3 chars	Free
	Partially free:	KP
	ISO - Copyright:	MA
	Unsorted:	AO, AF, BA, BE, BF, CS, FM, GB, KZ, MD, MH, MX, NZ, PE, PG, PH, TT, TW	DK, KE, SI, UG, VU
mixed 1,2 chars	Free:	IE
	Partially free:
	ISO - Copyright:
	Unsorted:	no system?: ES, GQ, IL 1 for regions, 2 for capital: KG 1 for capital, 2 for departments: RO 1 as the general rule, 2 for exceptions SE	KH	TH
mixed 2,3	Free:
	Partially free:
	ISO - Copyright:	CO
	Unsorted:	?: AU, BZ, EG, TD 2 for republics, 3 for cities, regions, districts: RU 2 for cities, 3 for rayons: AZ 2 for capital, 3 other: ??		MR, MV
mixed 1,3	Free:
	Partially free:
	ISO - Copyright:
	Unsorted:	MZ	MN	ML
mixed 1,2,3	Free:
	Partially free:
	ISO - Copyright:
	Unsorted:			CG, PY