The purpose of ISO 3166 is to define internationally recognized codes of letters and/or numbers that we can use when we refer to countries and their subdivisions. However, it does not define the names of countries – this information comes from United Nations sources (Terminology Bulletin Country Names and the Country and Region Codes for Statistical Use maintained by the United Nations Statistics Divisions). Using codes saves time and avoids errors as instead of using a country’s name (which will change depending on the language being used), we can use a combination of letters and/or numbers that are understood all over the world.

CESSDA Data Archiving Guide (DAG) ISO

International Organization for Standardization

Other