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 following rules:^[1]

• 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 is 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 split into several parts, the special code HH is used to indicate that there is no single successor country (e.g., Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), with the exception of Serbia and Montenegro, for which XX is used to avoid confusion.

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.

Current codes

The following is a complete list of the current ISO 3166-3 codes, with six columns (first two columns can be sorted by clicking on their respective buttons):

• Former country name — English short country name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
• ISO 3166-3 code
• Former ISO 3166-1 codes — ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, alpha-3, and numeric codes
• Period of validity
• Reason of deletion; New country names and ISO 3166-1 codes
• Notes — Any unofficial notes

The alpha-2 code CS had been withdrawn twice, the first time due to the split of Czechoslovakia and the second time due to the split of Serbia and Montenegro. Initially, the code CSHH was assigned to represent Serbia and Montenegro in ISO 3166-3 (Newsletter I-4), even though it had already been assigned to represent Czechoslovakia. To avoid confusion, the ISO 3166/MA later rectified the problem by agreeing to assign the code CSXX to represent Serbia and Montenegro (Newsletter I-5).

If a country changes its name without any territorial change, its 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.

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 five years. After the expiration of the transitional period, these codes are free to be reassigned.

Many of these alpha-2 codes were withdrawn before the popularization of the Domain Name System, and so were never used for the Internet's country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). Currently, a few ccTLDs using withdrawn codes are still active or being phased out.

Likewise, only a few of these alpha-2 codes were used in ISO 3166-2, the ISO standard for country subdivision codes, which was first published in 1998.

Editions and changes

There has been only one edition of ISO 3166-3 (ISO 3166-3:1999), published on 1999-03-11.

Between different editions, the ISO 3166/MA updates the code lists by announcing the changes in newsletters.^[2] The updating of ISO 3166-3 is totally dependent on the updating of ISO 3166-1.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Codes to history: Code for formerly used names of countries completes the trilogy of country codes". ISO Bulletin. International Organization for Standardization (ISO). 2000-04. pp. 10–12. http://www.iso.org/iso/codes0004-2.pdf. 
2. ^ "Updates on ISO 3166". ISO. http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/updates_on_iso_3166.htm. 

External links

• ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
  • ISO 3166-3
• ISO 3166-1 Change History, Statoids.com
• Country codes in ISO 3166 (last modified: 2003-07-25)
• Reserved code elements under ISO 3166-1 "Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes", published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (2002-06-10)
• http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gh/GHC_Histories.xls

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