BS EN ISO 3166-1:2020

What is ISO 3166-1 about?  

Country code is intended for use in any application requiring the expression of current country names in coded form. ISO 3166-1 is the first part of the ISO 3166 series of the standards which is applicable to country code. ISO 3166-1 specifies basic guidelines for the implementation and maintenance of country codes.  

Who is ISO 3166-1 for? 

ISO 3166-1 on country code is useful for: 

• Country code developers 
• Country code maintenance agencies 
• Country code users 

Why should you use ISO 3166-1?  

Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes (geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. 

ISO 3166-1 provides principles of assigning code elements, their construction, and maintenance which ensure the reliability of the country code and prevent misinterpretation. 

What’s changed since the last update?  

BS EN ISO 3166-1:2020 cancels and replaces BS ISO 3166-1:2013. 

BS EN ISO 3166-1:2020 includes the following significant technical change with respect to the BS ISO 3166-1:2013: 

• The codes have been moved to the database format  
• The components of the codes have been defined by descriptors, not by column or line numbers 
• The status of each alpha-2 country code element has been made explicit, as it is the main resource managed by BS ISO 3166/MA, necessary for traceability over time. 
• All characters in the database, specifically those with diacritical marks, have been checked with the Universal Coded Character Set, BS ISO/IEC 10646, and are used consistently.  
• The database encoding is UTF-8 (Universal Character Set Transformation Format - 8 bits) from BS ISO/IEC 10646, and the same has been used in many applications.  
• The three parts — three codes — belong to the same database, updates are done only once for all parts.