ISO 3166-3

ISO 3166-3 is part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and defines codes for country names which have been deleted from ISO 3166-1 since its first publication in 1974. The official name of the standard is Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries. It was first published in 1999.

Each former country name in ISO 3166-3 is assigned a four-letter alphabetic code. The first two letters are the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the former country, while the last two letters are allocated according to the following rules:^[1][2][3]

• If the country changed its name, the new ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code is used (e.g., Burma changed its name to Myanmar, whose new alpha-2 code is MM), or the special code AA is used if its alpha-2 code was not changed (e.g., Byelorussian SSR changed its name to Belarus, which has kept the same alpha-2 code).
• If the country merged into an existing country, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of this country is used (e.g., the German Democratic Republic merged into Germany, whose alpha-2 code is DE).
• If the country was divided into several parts, the special code HH is used to indicate that there is no single successor country (e.g., Czechoslovakia was divided into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), with the exception of Serbia and Montenegro, for which XX is used to avoid duplicate use of the same ISO 3166-3 code, as the alpha-2 code CS had twice been deleted from ISO 3166-1, the first time due to the split of Czechoslovakia and the second time due to the split of Serbia and Montenegro.

Besides the former country name and its ISO 3166-3 code, each entry in ISO 3166-3 also contains its former ISO 3166-1 codes, its period of validity, and the new country names and ISO 3166-1 codes used after its deletion from ISO 3166-1.

After a country is deleted from ISO 3166-1, its alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes will be transitionally reserved for a transitional period of at least fifty years. After the expiration of the transitional period, these codes are free to be reassigned.

If a country changes its name without any territorial change, its ISO 3166-1 numeric code remains the same. For example, when Burma was renamed Myanmar without territorial change in 1989, its alphabetic codes were changed, but its numeric code 104 has remained the same.

Currently, a few ccTLDs using deleted alpha-2 codes are still active or being phased out. However, alpha-2 codes which were deleted before the popularization of the Domain Name System in the late 1980s and early 1990s were never used for the Internet's country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Likewise, ISO 3166-2, the ISO standard for country subdivision codes which was first published in 1998, predated the deletion of many alpha-2 codes.

Current codes

The following is a complete list of the current ISO 3166-3 codes, with the following columns:

• Former country name — English short country name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
• Former codes — ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, alpha-3, and numeric codes
• Period of validity — Years when codes were officially assigned
• ISO 3166-3 code — Four-letter code assigned for former country name
• New country names and codes — Successor countries and their ISO 3166-1 codes

Click on the button in the header to sort by ISO 3166-3 code.

Notes

1. ↑ East Timor was included in ISO 3166-1 under the name of Portuguese Timor from 1974 to 1977.
2. ↑ The ISO 3166-1 numeric code of the Netherlands Antilles was changed from 532 to 530 after Aruba split away in 1986.
3. ↑ The period of validity was corrected from 1974-2011 to 1974-2010 with a reissue of ISO 3166-3 Newsletter I-6.
4. ↑ The territory name was corrected from "Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba" to "Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba" in ISO 3166-1 Newsletter VI-9.
5. ↑ Initially the ISO 3166-3 code CSHH was assigned to represent Serbia and Montenegro (Newsletter I-4), even though it had already been assigned to represent Czechoslovakia. The ISO 3166/MA later rectified the problem by agreeing to assign the ISO 3166-3 code CSXX to represent Serbia and Montenegro (Newsletter I-5).
6. ↑ Despite being part of the USSR, Belarus (then Byelorussian SSR) and Ukraine (then Ukrainian SSR) already had their own ISO 3166-1 codes due to them being UN members since 1945.
7. ↑ The ISO 3166-1 numeric code of Yugoslavia was changed from 890 (for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) to 891 (for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) in 1993.

Changes

The ISO 3166/MA updates ISO 3166-3 when necessary. The updating of ISO 3166-3 is totally dependent on the updating of ISO 3166-1.

ISO used to announce changes in newsletters which updated the currently valid standard, and releasing new editions which comprise a consolidation of newsletter changes. As of July 2013, changes are published in the online catalogue of ISO only and no newsletters are published anymore. Past newsletters remain available on the ISO website.^[4]

References

1. ↑ "ISO 3166-3". International Organization for Standardization (ISO). 
2. ↑ "Codes to history: Code for formerly used names of countries completes the trilogy of country codes" (PDF). ISO Bulletin. ISO. April 2000. pp. 10–12. 
3. ↑ Clive Feather (2003-07-25). "Country codes in ISO 3166 (Table 2: codes withdrawn from use)". 
4. ↑ "Updates on ISO 3166". ISO. 

Sources and external links

• ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
  • ISO 3166-3
• Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids"), Statoids.com
  • ISO 3166-1 Change History