[Pkg-isocodes-devel] Common names for countries in ISO 3166_1

[Christian PERRIER]

Quoting Yan Wong (yan at pixie.org.uk):
> I've been trying to match names from online databases to official country codes. I'm not sure what is the criteria for inclusion of a "common name" in the ISO 3166-1 database (e.g. name="Bolivia, Plurinational State of" has an associated common_name="Bolivia", but name="Iran, Islamic Republic of", doesn't have common_name="Iran".
> 
> Here's a list of the common names that I think would be useful for matching purposes, none of which are present in the current file. If any of these seem reasonable additions, I wonder how difficult it would be to add them?

Difficult, no. Potentially controversial, yes.

Imagine what would happen if we choose to shorten the name  of the
Islamic Republic of Iran to "Iran" and people in this country (orat
least *some* people are offended by the fact that, doingso, we negate
the fact the this country considers self an islamic country.

I would very very very much prefer if the local authorities choose
themselves that they should use the name they're known everywhere
else....and an official "short" name.

They didn't and we therefore should assume this was done on purpose.

So, the use ofcommon_name has been restricted to cases where we
were explicitely asked by some users from these countries to use the
common name of their country.

> 
> name="Iran, Islamic Republic of": common_name="Iran"
> name="Tanzania, United Republic of": common_name="Tanzania"
> name="Russian Federation": common_name="Russia"
> name="Brunei Darussalam": common_name="Brunei"
> name="Lao People's Democratic Republic": common_name="Laos"
> name="Syrian Arab Republic": common_name="Syria"
> name="Macedonia, Republic of": common_name="Macedonia"
> name="Viet Nam": common_name="Vietnam"

I can tell you that among the above, at least one is VERY controversial..:-)

> and more controversially
> 
> name="Korea, Democratic People's Republic of": common_name: "North Korea"
> name="Korea, Republic of": common_name: "South Korea"

Sounds very controversial, indeed....


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