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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.

ISO 3166-3 contains an entry for each formerly used country name and assigns a four-letter alphabetic code for each entry. The first two letters are the withdrawn ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the country, while the last two letters are allocated according to following rules:^[1]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 code is MM), or the special code AA is used if the alpha-2 code is not changed (e.g., Byelorussian S.S.R. changed its name to Belarus, and its alpha-2 code is not changed).
• If the country merged into an existing country, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of this country is used (e.g., German Democratic Republic merged into Germany, whose code is DE).
• If the country split into several parts, the special code HH is used to indicate that there is no single successor code, with the exception of Serbia and Montenegro, which uses XX to avoid confusion with Czechoslovakia, since the same alpha-2 code CS was assigned to the two countries during different periods.

[edit] Current codes

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

• Former country name – English short country name officially used by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA)
• ISO 3166-3 code (can be sorted by clicking on button)
• Former ISO 3166-1 codes (alpha-2, alpha-3, numeric)
• Period of validity
• Reason of withdrawal; New country names and ISO 3166-1 codes
• Notes – Any unofficial notes

Once five years have passed from the time of withdrawal, the alpha-2 code is free to be reassigned, as has been done with AI, CS, GE, and SK. However, some of the alpha-2 codes remain transitionally reserved for a longer period.

Many of the alpha-2 codes were withdrawn before the introduction of the domain name system, and so were never used for the Internet's country code top-level domains (ccTLDs). However, some ccTLDs using withdrawn codes are still currently active, such as .su, .tp, and .yu.

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 (Newsletter I-4), even though it had already been used for 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, its numeric code 104 remained the same.

[edit] Changes

Changes to ISO 3166-3 are announced in newsletters by ISO 3166/MA. Since the first publication of ISO 3166-3 in 1999, five newsletters have been released:^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ Codes to history: Code for formerly used names of countries completes the trilogy of country codes
2. ^ Updates on ISO 3166

[edit] External links

• ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
  • Official page of ISO 3166-3
• Country codes, Statoids.com
  • ISO 3166-1 Change History
• Country codes in ISO 3166 (include withdrawn codes)
• http://www.globalfinancialdata.com/gh/GHC_Histories.xls