[tz] Pre-1970 data

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Magnus Fromreide via tz said:
> I do not know why some places get their own
> 3166 region codes but I suppose it is a thing for autonomus regions.

Originally it was something to do with trade statistics. Codes were given
to what the UN recognized as countries *or* places that had international
trade that was tracked separately. So it's not so much autonomus regions as
physically separate regions.

So Corsica doesn't have a code because it's just (for these purposes) an
island off the coast of France and Northern Ireland doesn't have a code for
much the same reason. While SJ (or Greenland, as part of Denmark) are
tracked separately by whichever body was doing the tracking.

(Even before the Soviet Union dissolved, Belarus and Ukraine had their own
codes because the UN recognized them as separate countries - even though
part of the USSR - as a fudge to give the USSR more power in the UN.)

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Clive D.W. Feather          | If you lie to the compiler,
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