[Ctn-crosscom] Some clarifications about the nature of ISO 3166

[Jaap Akkerhuis]

All,

In the last call I pleaded for consistency of terms, when referring to
ISO subjects. As I have noticed over time (and not only our group but
all over the ICANN community) there is a tendency use informal
terminology and definitions in various discussions. That does sometimes
causes confusions of Babylonian proportions.

I offer here some clarifications in the form of this FAQ. I hope it
helps to minimize the confusion in the discussion, and also in the
development of the glossary to our current draft.

Regards,

	jaap
	
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Q: What is the ISO 3166?

A: It is an international standard developed by ISO. ISO 3166 provides
   universally applicable coded representations of names of countries
   (current and non-current), dependencies, and other areas of
   particular geopolitical interest and their subdivisions. The
   standards consists of three parts, ISO 3166-1 (Part 1: Countries
   codes), ISO 3166-2 (Part 2: Country subdivisions code), ISO3166-3
   (Part 3: Code for formerly used names of countries). The edition
   (version) of is identified by the year of publication. Therefore
   the full reference to the current (third) Edition of ISO 3166 Part
   is ISO 3166-1:2013.

   The codes only uses the ASCII letters (A-Z) and numbers (0-9) and
   for ISO 3166-2, hyphens.

Q: What form of codes are defined?

A: ISO3166-1 uses two letter codes alpha-2), three letter codes
   (alpha-3) and numerical codes, ISO 3166-2 uses codes starting with
   and ISO 3166 alpha-2 code an hyphen and one or more letters or
   numbers, while ISO 3166-4 uses 4 letter codes.
    
   The codes can have various classifications such as Assigned (by ISO
   3166/MA or User Assigned), Unassigned, Reserved in various ways
   (Exceptionally, transitional, and Indeterminately). See also
   <http://www.iso.org/iso/home/standards/country_codes/country_codes_glossary.htm>
   for details.

   The real authoritative source for these terms is of course the
   Standard itself.
   
Q: What is the ISO list code list?

A: There just a list. However the term is used colloquially to denote
   (most of the time) the list with the Country Code Assignments in
   Section 9 of ISO 3166-1. People tend to use this imprecise, often
   lumping the Reserved Codes also in the notion of "the ISO 3166
   list". At the same token but even more confusing is the use of the
   term "the ISO 3166-2 list" not meaning part 2 of the standard but
   the list of the alpha-2 codes from Part one (and then it isn't
   whether they mean all possible codes, both the Assigned and the
   Reserved or just the Assigned).

Q: What is the purpose of all these codes anyway?

A: To paraphrase from ISO 3166-1, the codes are intended to be used in
   any application requiring the expression of current country names
   in coded form. The term "country names" is defined in definition
   3.4 "name of country, dependency, or other area of particular
   geopolitical interest". That is why often sees the term "Countries
   and territories" is used as a reminder that it is not just about
   countries.

Q: What has statistics to do with these codes?

A: The list of countries in Part 1 are based (but not limited to) on
   the list in the "Standard Country or Area Code for Statistical Use"
   of the UN.