[Pkg-isocodes-devel] Conventions (was: Please add ...)

[Alexis Darrasse]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2007 at 08:15:27PM +0200, Christian Perrier wrote:
> > 3. when ISO gives higher-level subdivisions without assigning them
> > global codes (e.g. autonomous communities in Spain), we put them as-is.
> > I have however the impression that the geographical_region element
> > should be used instead, as it is the case for Italy. We also don't use
> > the information on the relationships between regions and subdivisions
> > that is present in the ISO, maybe we should add an optional attribute in
> > iso_3166_2_entry?
> 
> The general point would be being as close as possible of the standard,
> so, well, it's up to you.

Ok, I just read again the comment on the begining of the file, where it
is stated:
<!-- For some countries the standard also lists a second level of -->
<!-- regional divisions (e.g. for BE, FR, GB, IT, etc.). The codes  -->
<!-- for these regional divisions are shown as 'XX YYYY', i.e. with a -->
<!-- space character instead of the '-'.        -->

I had read that at the begining, I managed to forget, shame on me...

So, my question would be mostly: what is geographical_region for? It is
currently used in four cases, CU, GB, IE and IT. In the last two we use
it for the ISO codes of regions, (so if we stick to the comment they
should become iso_3166_subset), in GB we use it for "County names, with
official abbreviations", which are not part of the ISO standard, and in
CU we have "recommended abbreviations" of the provincies, with a
misleading comment. So if we keep the conventions stated in the file and
we don't included codes not present in the ISO standard, what is the
purpose of geographical_region?