[Pkg-isocodes-devel] Obsolete countries - alpha 2 codes

[Tobias Quathamer]

Am 04.06.2013 13:48, schrieb Pedro Ferreira:
> So, that's what I'd like to ask: is there any special reason why the two
> letter codes for the countries in question are not included in the XML?

Yes, there is. Actually, those codes are no longer part of ISO 3166-1,
but of ISO 3166-3 (removed codes). See their webpage for more
information[1].

Quoting from the webpage:

ISO 3166-3:1999 establishes codes for country names which have been
deleted from ISO 3166-1 since its first publication in 1974. The code
elements for formerly used country names have a length of four
alphabetical characters (alpha-4 code) and their structure depends on
the reason why the country name has been removed from ISO 3166-1.

Country names might be removed from ISO 3166-1 for various reasons

* A country might change a significant part of its name, for example
Burma (BU) was changed to Myanmar (MM) in 1989. The code element for the
formerly used country name is therefore BUMM.

* A country may divide into two or more new ones, for example
Czechoslovakia was divided into Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. The
code element for the formerly used country name Czechoslovakia is CSHH,
HH meaning that no single successor country exists.

* Two or more countries may merge for example Democratic Yemen (YD) and
Yemen Arab Republic (YE) merged into the Republic of Yemen (YE) in 1990.
The code element used for the formerly used country name Democratic
Yemen is YDYE.


I think that Christian is right, we should probably split the file into
two parts (ISO 3166-1 and ISO 3166-3).

Regards,
Tobias

[1] <http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes.htm>


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