ISO 3166-1 екі әріпті ел кодтары

Two letter country codes defined in ISO 3166 1

ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 codes are two letter country codes defined in ISO 3166 1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. They are the most widely used of the country codes published by ISO (the others being alpha 3 and numeric), and are used most prominently for the Internet's country code top level domains (with a few exceptions). They are also used as country identifiers extending the postal code when appropriate within the international postal system for paper mail, and have replaced the previous one consisting one letter codes. They were first included as part of the ISO 3166 standard in its first edition in 1974.

The ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 codes are used in different environments and are also part of other standards. In some cases they are not perfectly implemented.

Starting in 1985, ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 codes have been used in the Domain Name System as country code top level domains (ccTLDs). The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority currently assigns the ccTLDs mostly following the alpha 2 codes, but with a few exceptions. For example, the United Kingdom, whose alpha 2 code is , uses uk instead of gb as its ccTLD, as is currently exceptionally reserved in ISO 3166 1 on the request of the United Kingdom. The WIPO coding standard ST.3 is based on ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 codes, but includes a number of additional codes for international intellectual property organizations, which are currently reserved and not used at the present stage in ISO 3166 1. The European Commission generally uses ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 codes with two exceptions: (not ) is used to represent Greece, and (not ) is used to represent the United Kingdom. This notwithstanding, the Official Journal of the European Communities specified that and be used to represent Greece and United Kingdom respectively. For VAT administration purposes, the European Commission uses and for Greece and the United Kingdom respectively. The United Nations uses a combination of ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 and alpha 3 codes, along with codes that pre date the creation of ISO 3166, for international vehicle registration codes, which are codes used to identify the issuing country of a vehicle registration plate; some of these codes are currently indeterminately reserved in ISO 3166 1. IETF language tags (conforming to the BCP 47 standard track and maintained in an IANA registry) are also partially derived from ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 codes (for the region subtags). The full list of ISO 3166 1 codes assigned to countries and territories are usable as region subtags. Also, the "exceptionally reserved" alpha 2 codes defined in ISO 3166 1 (with the exception of ) are also usable as region subtags for language tags. However, newer stability policies (agreed with ISO) have been implemented to avoid deleting subtags that have been withdrawn in ISO 3166 1; instead they are kept and aliased to the new preferred subtags, or kept as subtags grouping several countries. Some other region grouping subtags are derived from other standards. Under the newer stability policies, old assigned codes that have been withdrawn from ISO 3166 1 should no longer be reassigned to another country or territory (as has occurred in the past for "CS").

User assigned code elements are codes at the disposal of users who need to add further names of countries, territories, or other geographical entities to their in house application of ISO 3166 1, and the ISO 3166/MA will never use these codes in the updating process of the standard. The following alpha 2 codes can be user assigned: , to , to , and For example:
The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) uses as a second country code for the United States, as it ran out of three character registrant codes within the prefix. It also uses for some registrants assigned directly. The Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) assigns to represent Outlying Oceania (a multi territory region containing Antarctica, Bouvet Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Christmas Island, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the French Southern Territories, and the United States Minor Outlying Islands), and to represent "Unknown or Invalid Territory". Before the adoption of the macroregion code by ISO, CLDR also used to represent the European Union. The code is being used by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as an indicator for the Community Plant Variety Office. The code is being used by Switzerland as a country code for the Canary Islands, although is already reserved for that purpose. The codes and are being used by Russia to represent Abkhazia and South Ossetia respectively. The code is being used by the UK Government, as an EORI number country code prefix for Northern Ireland, and the members of European union for European Union value added tax reports with trade with Northern Ireland. The code is being used by the European Commission the IMF, and SWIFT, the CLDR, and other organizations as a temporary country code for Kosovo. The code is being used by WIPO as an indicator for the Nordic Patent Institute, an international organization common to Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The code is being used by WIPO as an indicator for the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. The code is being used by WIPO as an indicator for the Visegrad Patent Institute. The code is being used by WIPO as an indicator for unknown states, other entities or organizations. UN/LOCODE assigns to represent installations in international waters.

Reserved code elements are codes which have become obsolete, or are required in order to enable a particular user application of the standard but do not qualify for inclusion in ISO 3166 1. To avoid transitional application problems and to aid users who require specific additional code elements for the functioning of their coding systems, the ISO 3166/MA, when justified, reserves these codes which it undertakes not to use for other than specified purposes during a limited or indeterminate period of time. The reserved alpha 2 codes can be divided into the following four categories: exceptional reservations, transitional reservations, indeterminate reservations, and codes currently agreed not to use.