ISO 3166 is a three-part geographic coding standard for coding the names of countries and dependent areas, and the principal subdivisions thereof.

Among other things, the codes are used for class="external">[1:

  • Federal Express uses the IATA codes, which are the ISO 3166-1 codes, for package shipping
  • in postal containers used to exchange mail internationally
  • in machine-readable passports, which use the 3 letter codes(ISO/IEC 7501-1
  • to identify currencies in international transactions (ISO 4217)
  • in the International Securities Identification Number (ISO 6166)
  • the top level country domain codes on the internet, which use the 2 character forms
  • the UN/LOCODEs for international trade to identify ports, customs offices and other sites of interest in trade.
  • the WIPO uses them for intellectual property tracking

The component standards are:

External links