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

[Cheryl Langdon-Orr]

Yes thanks indeed and can I be noted as "strongly supporting your plea for
consistency in use of the terms" referring to ISO terms (preferably the
authoritative terms of course!)
On 02/04/2015 2:38 am, "Annebeth Lange" <annebeth.lange at uninett.no> wrote:

> Thank you, Jaap. Very useful.
>
>
> Annebeth B Lange
> Head of Legal and Policy
> UNINETT Norid AS
>
>
>
> > Den 1. apr. 2015 kl. 14.44 skrev Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap at nlnetlabs.nl>:
> >
> > 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
> >
> > ----
> >
> > 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.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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