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

[Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez]

Thank you very much (again) Jaap for your great inputs.

Lars, should we include this FAQs in our “Definitions” section, at least for the moment and for the record please?

Cheers

Carlos Raúl Gutiérrez
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> On Apr 1, 2015, at 6:42 AM, Jaap Akkerhuis <jaap at NLnetLabs.nl> wrote:
> 
> 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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