The purpose of ISO 3166-2 is to establish an international standard of short and unique alphanumeric codes to represent the relevant administrative divisions of all countries in a more convenient and less ambiguous form than their full names. Each complete ISO 3166-2 code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen:
The second part is a string of up to three alphanumeric characters, which is usually obtained from national sources and stems from coding systems already in use in the country concerned, but may also be developed by the ISO itself.
Each complete ISO 3166-2 code can then be used to uniquely identify a country subdivision in a global context.
Currently more than 4000 subdivisions are assigned codes in ISO 3166-2. For some countries, codes are defined for more than one level of subdivisions. The codes for the first-level subdivisions are sometimes defined in the official standard without the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the country as prefix, and thus do not guarantee uniqueness in a global context by themselves. These codes can be completed by adding the alpha-2 code as prefix.
The following is a complete table of the current ISO 3166-2 codes by each country, with three columns:
Alpha-2 — ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the country (click on the alpha-2 code to see the ISO 3166-2 codes of each country)
Country name — English short country name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
Subdivisions assigned codes — Subdivisions currently assigned codes in ISO 3166-2 (first-level subdivisions in italics); since ISO 3166-2 is only occasionally updated, they do not necessarily reflect the latest subdivision changes
For the following countries, a number of their subdivisions in ISO 3166-2, most of them dependent territories, are also assigned their own country codes in ISO 3166-1:
^ Taiwan is included as a subdivision of China, as the United Nations considers it as part of China even though it is not de facto under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China. In ISO 3166-1, Taiwan is listed as "Taiwan, Province of China" due to its political status within the United Nations.
The format of the ISO 3166-2 codes is different for each country. The codes may be alphabetic, numeric, or alphanumeric, and they may also be of constant or variable length. The following is a table of the ISO 3166-2 codes of each country with codes assigned, grouped by their format:
Editions and changes
There have been two editions of ISO 3166-2. The first edition (ISO 3166-2:1998) was published on 1998-12-20, and the second edition (ISO 3166-2:2007) was published on 2007-12-13.
Between different editions, the ISO 3166/MA updates the code lists by announcing the changes in newsletters. Changes in ISO 3166-2 comprise mostly of spelling corrections, addition and deletion of subdivisions, and modification of the administrative structure.
^"English country names and code elements". International Organization for Standardization (ISO). http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/iso_3166_code_lists/english_country_names_and_code_elements.htm.
^"Updates on ISO 3166". ISO. http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/updates_on_iso_3166.htm.
^"Statoids Newsletter January 2008". Statoids.com. http://www.statoids.com/n0801.html.
Sources and external links
ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
ISO 3166-2
Tracking changes in ISO 3166-2
Administrative Divisions of Countries ("Statoids"), Statoids.com
Lists of ISO 3166-2 codes (not up-to-date)
Note: many of the lists below are based on outdated versions of ISO 3166-2 codes. For the latest version, please contact the ISO 3166/MA.
ISO 3166-2 State Codes, CommonDataHub
Country Subdivisions, eQuest
Country sub-entity name code, GEFEG.FX
Country, state and province codes, Moving Image Collections
, eQuest