ISO - alpha-ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are the best known part of ISO 3166-1 and subsequent use as most of the country codes for Internet domain names (see also External Links below).
Uses and applicationsThe codes are used in different environments and are also part of other standards. In some cases there are not perfectly implemented. Perfect implementationsThe two-letter ISO 3166-1 codes form the first two letters of the three-letter ISO 4217 standard codes for currencies. It is used in International Bank Account Numbers, the ISO 6166 International securities identification numbering (ISIN) system, ISO 7372, ISO 9375, the ISO/IEC 7501-1 machine readable travel documents standard, UN/LOCODE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Recommendation 16, for encoding names of ports). Imperfect implementationsStarting in 1985, the two-letter codes have been used in domain names on the Internet, where they are used to form country code ccTLDs, with some exceptions e.g. United Kingdom, where the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority did not follow the ISO 3166-1 and used UK instead of GB. For a complete list of exceptions, see the top-level domain article. WIPO standard ST.3 (for encoding country which issued a patent or trademark). ChangesChanges to ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 are tracked by ISO 3166-3. Current elementsNote that AA, ZZ and the ranges QM-QZ and XA-XZ are reserved for private use. If a country code cannot be found in the list then it is probably obsolete, in which case it should be found in the list of obsolete country codes, further below. The following is intended to be a complete list of current ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes.
ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 Reserved Code Elements listReserved code elements are codes which, while not ISO 3166-1 codes, are in use for some applications in conjunction with the ISO 3166 codes. The ISO 3166 MA therefore reserves them, so that they are not used for new official ISO 3166 codes, thereby creating conflicts between the standard and those applications. The alpha-2 reserved code elements list, as of July 23, 2003, is divided into the following four categories. Transitional reservationsA transitional reservation refers to a code which was formerly present in ISO 3166, but which since has been deleted. It will be maintained as a transitional reservation for at least five years, for the sake of users who still need to refer to the former entity or whose systems have not yet been updated to refer to the new code. The transitionally reserved alpha-2 code elements are:
Indeterminate reservationsThe indeterminately reserved alpha-2 code elements are code elements used to identify vehicles under the 1949 and 1968 United Nations Road Traffic Conventions. These codes differ from those used in ISO 3166. The ISO 3166 MA hopes that these codes will eventually be phased out and that ISO 3166-1 codes will be used instead; but in the meantime they are reserved, to avoid conflicts between ISO 3166-1 and the Conventions, and to facilitate any transition from the Convention codes to ISO 3166-1 codes. These codes are as follows:
Exceptional reservationsExceptionally reserved alpha-2 code elements are reserved permanently because they are needed for particular purposes. ISO 3166 MA only authorizes their use for the particular purpose for which they were established. The list is as follows:
Other reservationsIn addition, the ISO 3166 MA has undertaken, for the time being, not to use the following alpha-2 codes from WIPO Standard ST.3. However, this undertaking is not classified as an transitional, indeterminate or transitional reservation, since the codes do not refer to countries, dependent areas or other geographic regions or localities:
Other withdrawn codesSee ISO 3166-3 for a full list of withdrawn codes.
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