ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: Difference between revisions

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ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes are three-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 geographical interest. They allow a better visual association between the codes and the country names than the two-letter alpha-2 codes (the third set of codes is numeric and hence offers no visual association).^[1] 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-3 codes are used most prominently in ISO/IEC 7501-1 for machine-readable passports, as standardized by the International Civil Aviation Organization, with a number of additional codes for special passports; some of these codes are currently reserved and not used at the present stage in ISO 3166-1.^[2]

The United Nations uses a combination of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes, along with codes that pre-date the creation of ISO 3166, for international vehicle registration codes, which are codes used to identify the issuing country of a vehicle registration plate; some of these codes are currently indeterminately reserved in ISO 3166-1.^[3]

Current codes

Officially assigned code elements

The following is a complete list of the current officially assigned ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes,^[4] using a title case version of the English short names officially defined by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA):

ABW Aruba
AFG Afghanistan
AGO Angola
AIA Anguilla
ALA Åland Islands
ALB Albania
AND Andorra
ARE United Arab Emirates
ARG Argentina
ARM Armenia
ASM American Samoa
ATA Antarctica
ATF French Southern Territories
ATG Antigua and Barbuda
AUS Australia
AUT Austria
AZE Azerbaijan
BDI Burundi
BEL Belgium
BEN Benin
BES Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba
BFA Burkina Faso
BGD Bangladesh
BGR Bulgaria
BHR Bahrain
BHS Bahamas
BIH Bosnia and Herzegovina
BLM Saint Barthélemy
BLR Belarus
BLZ Belize
BMU Bermuda
BOL Bolivia (Plurinational State of)
BRA Brazil
BRB Barbados
BRN Brunei Darussalam
BTN Bhutan
BVT Bouvet Island
BWA Botswana
CAF Central African Republic
CAN Canada
CCK Cocos (Keeling) Islands
CHE Switzerland
CHL Chile
CHN China
CIV Côte d'Ivoire
CMR Cameroon
COD Congo, Democratic Republic of the
COG Congo
COK Cook Islands
COL Colombia
COM Comoros
CPV Cabo Verde
CRI Costa Rica
CUB Cuba
CUW Curaçao
CXR Christmas Island
CYM Cayman Islands
CYP Cyprus
CZE Czechia
DEU Germany
DJI Djibouti
DMA Dominica
DNK Denmark
DOM Dominican Republic
DZA Algeria
ECU Ecuador
EGY Egypt
ERI Eritrea
ESH Western Sahara
ESP Spain
EST Estonia
ETH Ethiopia
FIN Finland
FJI Fiji
FLK Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
FRA France
FRO Faroe Islands
FSM Micronesia (Federated States of)
GAB Gabon
GBR United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
GEO Georgia
GGY Guernsey
GHA Ghana
GIB Gibraltar
GIN Guinea
GLP Guadeloupe
GMB Gambia
GNB Guinea-Bissau
GNQ Equatorial Guinea
GRC Greece
GRD Grenada
GRL Greenland
GTM Guatemala
GUF French Guiana
GUM Guam
GUY Guyana
HKG Hong Kong
HMD Heard Island and McDonald Islands
HND Honduras
HRV Croatia
HTI Haiti
HUN Hungary
IDN Indonesia
IMN Isle of Man
IND India
IOT British Indian Ocean Territory
IRL Ireland
IRN Iran (Islamic Republic of)
IRQ Iraq
ISL Iceland
ISR Israel
ITA Italy
JAM Jamaica
JEY Jersey
JOR Jordan
JPN Japan
KAZ Kazakhstan
KEN Kenya
KGZ Kyrgyzstan
KHM Cambodia
KIR Kiribati
KNA Saint Kitts and Nevis
KOR Korea, Republic of
KWT Kuwait
LAO Lao People's Democratic Republic
LBN Lebanon
LBR Liberia
LBY Libya
LCA Saint Lucia
LIE Liechtenstein
LKA Sri Lanka
LSO Lesotho
LTU Lithuania
LUX Luxembourg
LVA Latvia
MAC Macao
MAF Saint Martin (French part)
MAR Morocco
MCO Monaco
MDA Moldova, Republic of
MDG Madagascar
MDV Maldives
MEX Mexico
MHL Marshall Islands
MKD North Macedonia
MLI Mali
MLT Malta
MMR Myanmar
MNE Montenegro
MNG Mongolia
MNP Northern Mariana Islands
MOZ Mozambique
MRT Mauritania
MSR Montserrat
MTQ Martinique
MUS Mauritius
MWI Malawi
MYS Malaysia
MYT Mayotte
NAM Namibia
NCL New Caledonia
NER Niger
NFK Norfolk Island
NGA Nigeria
NIC Nicaragua
NIU Niue
NLD Netherlands
NOR Norway
NPL Nepal
NRU Nauru
NZL New Zealand
OMN Oman
PAK Pakistan
PAN Panama
PCN Pitcairn
PER Peru
PHL Philippines
PLW Palau
PNG Papua New Guinea
POL Poland
PRI Puerto Rico
PRK Korea (Democratic People's Republic of)
PRT Portugal
PRY Paraguay
PSE Palestine, State of
PYF French Polynesia
QAT Qatar
REU Réunion
ROU Romania
RUS Russian Federation
RWA Rwanda
SAU Saudi Arabia
SDN Sudan
SEN Senegal
SGP Singapore
SGS South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
SHN Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
SJM Svalbard and Jan Mayen
SLB Solomon Islands
SLE Sierra Leone
SLV El Salvador
SMR San Marino
SOM Somalia
SPM Saint Pierre and Miquelon
SRB Serbia
SSD South Sudan
STP Sao Tome and Principe
SUR Suriname
SVK Slovakia
SVN Slovenia
SWE Sweden
SWZ Eswatini
SXM Sint Maarten (Dutch part)
SYC Seychelles
SYR Syrian Arab Republic
TCA Turks and Caicos Islands
TCD Chad
TGO Togo
THA Thailand
TJK Tajikistan
TKL Tokelau
TKM Turkmenistan
TLS Timor-Leste
TON Tonga
TTO Trinidad and Tobago
TUN Tunisia
TUR Turkey
TUV Tuvalu
TWN Taiwan, Province of China
TZA Tanzania, United Republic of
UGA Uganda
UKR Ukraine
UMI United States Minor Outlying Islands
URY Uruguay
USA United States of America
UZB Uzbekistan
VAT Holy See
VCT Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
VEN Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of)
VGB Virgin Islands (British)
VIR Virgin Islands (U.S.)
VNM Viet Nam
VUT Vanuatu
WLF Wallis and Futuna
WSM Samoa
YEM Yemen
ZAF South Africa
ZMB Zambia
ZWE Zimbabwe

User-assigned code elements

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-3 codes can be user-assigned: AAA to AAZ, QMA to QZZ, XAA to XZZ, and ZZA to ZZZ.^[5]

Examples

The following codes are used in ISO/IEC 7501-1 for special machine-readable passports:^[2]

EUE is used for the European Union laissez-passer^[6]
XOM is used to represent the Sovereign Military Order of Malta
XPO is used for Interpol travel documents
XXA is used to represent a stateless person, as defined in Article 1 of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons
XXB is used to represent a refugee, as defined in Article 1 of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees as amended by the 1967 Protocol
XXC is used to represent a refugee, other than as defined above
XXX is used to represent a person of unspecified nationality
WSA is used for the World Service Authority World Passport (The World Service Authority World Passport contains "WSA" as the authority code. It has been filed with the International Civil Aviation Organization, but does not appear in official ICAO documents as valid.^[7])

NATO STANAG 1059 INT is built upon ISO alpha-3 codes, but also defines alpha-2 codes incompatible with ISO 3166-1. It introduces several private use codes for fictional countries and organizational entities:

XXB "Brownland"
XXG "Greyland"
XXI "Indigoland"
XXL "Limeland"
XXP "Purpleland"
XXR "Redland"
XXW "Whiteland"
XXY "Yellowland"
XXE SHAPE
XXM NATO
XXN NATO "Blue" Command
XXS SACLANT

NATO also continues to use reserved codes for continents:

ABB Asia
EEE Europe
FFF Africa
NNN North America
SRR South America
UUU Oceania
NTT NATO countries

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-3 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-3 codes are currently exceptionally reserved:

ASC Ascension Island – Reserved on request of Universal Postal Union (UPU), also used by International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
CPT Clipperton Island – Reserved on request of ITU
DGA Diego Garcia – Reserved on request of ITU
FXX France, Metropolitan – Reserved on request of France; Officially assigned before being deleted from ISO 3166-1
SUN USSR – From June 2008; Transitionally reserved from September 1992; Officially assigned before being deleted from ISO 3166-1
TAA Tristan da Cunha – Reserved on request of UPU

The following alpha-3 codes were previously exceptionally reserved, but are now officially assigned:

GGY Guernsey – Reserved on request of UPU
IMN Isle of Man – Reserved on request of UPU
JEY Jersey – Reserved on request of UPU

Transitional reservations

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-3 codes are currently transitionally reserved:

ANT Netherlands Antilles – From December 2010
BUR Burma – From December 1989
BYS Byelorussian SSR – From June 1992
CSK Czechoslovakia – From June 1993
NTZ Neutral Zone – From July 1993
ROM Romania – From February 2002; Code changed to ROU^[8]
SCG Serbia and Montenegro – From September 2006
TMP East Timor – From May 2002
YUG Yugoslavia – From July 2003
ZAR Zaire – From July 1997

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-3 codes are currently indeterminately reserved:

ADN Aden
BDS Barbados
BRU Brunei
CDN Canada
EAK Kenya
EAT Tanganyika [Part of Tanzania, United Republic of]
EAU Uganda
EAZ Zanzibar [Part of Tanzania, United Republic of]
GBA Alderney
GBG Guernsey
GBJ Jersey
GBM Isle of Man
GBZ Gibraltar
GCA Guatemala
HKJ Jordan
MAL Malaysia
RCA Central African Republic
RCB Congo, People's Republic of
RCH Chile
RMM Mali
RNR Zambia
ROK Korea, Republic of
RSM San Marino
RSR Southern Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]
SLO Slovenia
SME Suriname
TMN Turkmenistan
WAG Gambia
WAL Sierra Leone
WAN Nigeria
ZRE Zaire, People's Republic of

The following alpha-3 code was previously indeterminately reserved, but has been reassigned to another country as its official code:

ROU Uruguay – Code reassigned to Romania

Codes currently agreed not to use

In addition, the ISO 3166/MA will not use the following alpha-3 codes at the present stage, as they are used in ISO/IEC 7501-1 for special machine-readable passports:

GBD identifies a British Passport holder who is a British Overseas Territories citizen
GBN identifies a British Passport holder who is a British National (Overseas)
GBO identifies a British Passport holder who is a British Overseas citizen
GBP identifies a British Passport holder who is a British protected person
GBS identifies a British Passport holder who is a British subject
UNA is used as a substitute for nationality where the holder is an Official of a Specialized Agency of the UN Organization
UNK identifies Kosovo residents to whom travel documents were issued by the United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK)
UNO is used to designate the UN Organization as the issuer and used as a substitute for nationality where the holder is an Official of the UN Organization

Deleted codes

Besides the codes currently transitionally reserved and two other codes currently exceptionally reserved (FXX for France, Metropolitan and SUN for USSR), the following alpha-3 codes have also been deleted from ISO 3166-1:^[9]

AFI French Afars and Issas
ATB British Antarctic Territory
ATN Dronning Maud Land
CTE Canton and Enderbury Islands
DDR German Democratic Republic
DHY Dahomey
GEL Gilbert and Ellice Islands
HVO Upper Volta
JTN Johnston Island
MID Midway Islands
NHB New Hebrides
PCI Pacific Islands (Trust Territory)
PCZ Panama Canal Zone
PHI Philippines – Code changed to PHL in 1976^[10]
PUS United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands
RHO Southern Rhodesia
SKM Sikkim
VDR Viet-Nam, Democratic Republic of
WAK Wake Island
YMD Yemen, Democratic

References

^ "ISO 3166 – FAQs – General questions". International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
^ ^a ^b "Appendix 7 to Section IV – Three-letter codes" (PDF). Doc 9303, Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part I – Machine Readable Passports, Volume I – Passports with Machine Readable Data Stored in Optical Character Recognition Format. International Civil Aviation Organization. pp. IV-43–IV-46.
^ "Distinguishing signs used on vehicles in international traffic" (PDF). United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
^ "Country names and code elements". ISO.
^ "Glossary for ISO 3166 - Codes for countries and their subdivisions". ISO.
^ "European Union laissez-passer (video at 0:47)". Laissez-passer.eu. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
^ "Doc 9303 : Machine Readable Travel Documents" (PDF). Icao.int. p. III-1-4. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
^ ISO International Organization for Standardization, ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (1 February 2002). "RE: Change of alpha-3 Code Element" (PDF). ISO 3166-1 NEWSLETTER No. V-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 26 June 2017. Description of change: Change of the alpha-3 Code element for Romania from ROM to ROU following a request of the Government of Romania.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^ Clive Feather (2003-07-25). "Country codes in ISO 3166 (Table 2: codes withdrawn from use)". Davros.org.
^ Gwillim Law (2014-07-17). "Changes in ISO 3166-1". Statoids.com.

Sources and external links

ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
- 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
Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use, United Nations Statistics Division
- Countries or areas, codes and abbreviations – list of alpha-3 and numeric codes (a few territories officially assigned codes in ISO 3166-1 are not included in this list)
The World Factbook (public domain), Central Intelligence Agency
- Appendix D – Cross-Reference List of Country Data Codes – comparison of FIPS 10, ISO 3166, and STANAG 1059 country codes
Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids"), Statoids.com
- Country codes – comparison of ISO 3166-1 country codes with other country codes
- ISO 3166-1 Change History, Statoids.com

[1] "ISO 3166 – FAQs – General questions". International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

[icao-2] "Appendix 7 to Section IV – Three-letter codes" (PDF). Doc 9303, Machine Readable Travel Documents, Part I – Machine Readable Passports, Volume I – Passports with Machine Readable Data Stored in Optical Character Recognition Format. International Civil Aviation Organization. pp. IV-43–IV-46.

[3] "Distinguishing signs used on vehicles in international traffic" (PDF). United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

[4] "Country names and code elements". ISO.

[5] "Glossary for ISO 3166 - Codes for countries and their subdivisions". ISO.

[6] "European Union laissez-passer (video at 0:47)". Laissez-passer.eu. Retrieved 4 June 2016.

[7] "Doc 9303 : Machine Readable Travel Documents" (PDF). Icao.int. p. III-1-4. Retrieved 15 July 2018.

[Romania-8] ISO International Organization for Standardization, ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (1 February 2002). "RE: Change of alpha-3 Code Element" (PDF). ISO 3166-1 NEWSLETTER No. V-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-22. Retrieved 26 June 2017. Description of change: Change of the alpha-3 Code element for Romania from ROM to ROU following a request of the Government of Romania.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)

[9] Clive Feather (2003-07-25). "Country codes in ISO 3166 (Table 2: codes withdrawn from use)". Davros.org.

[10] Gwillim Law (2014-07-17). "Changes in ISO 3166-1". Statoids.com.

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