Re: [DNSOP] Thoughts on the top level name space

[Jaap Akkerhuis <[e-mail]>]

 David Conrad writes:

 > 
 > In the past, ISO-3166/MA maintained a color-coded "decoding table" that
 > clearly identified the "user assigned" 2-letter ISO codes. However, for
 > reasons that I'm sure made sense to someone, they stopped publishing the
 > decoding table (http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table.html)
 > it now is found on the Wikipedia page for "ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2"
 > (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2#Decoding_table). 

The official decoding table got lost when ISO revamped their website.
More people have complained about that (including me).

One can get something similar by going to
<https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#home>, select the country codes in the
search box, and then do an empty search (just hit enter). That gets
you a complete a table (and you might want to set results per page on
maximum). Unfortunately, the User Assigned code are missing.

The last time I looked at the Wikipedia it was a bit out of date but I
just looked and someone seems to have updated it.
 
 > I haven't looked particularly closely but I've been unable to locate an
 > official reference to "user assigned" codes any more (e.g., that term
 > isn't in the glossary at
 > http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes_glossary.html).
 > 
 > Is there an official, ISO maintained, listing of ISO-3166 "user
 > assigned" codes?
 > 

The standard itself is authoritative for definitions of
terms, to quote from ISO 3166-1:2013 Clause 8.1.3 says:

	8.1.3 User-assigned code elements

	If users need code elements to represent country names not
	included in this part of ISO 3166, the series of letters AA,
	QM to QZ, XA to XZ, and ZZ, and the series AAA to AAZ, QMA to
	QZZ, XAA to XZZ, and ZZA to ZZZ respectively, and the series
	of numbers 900 to 999 are available.

I just took a trip along memory by means of the WayBack Machine. It
shows me on olde ISO site[1] (from 2009, just picked a random year),
which has the definition in the glossary[2]. That has the same quote
as above (from ISO 3166-1:2006) and some explanatory text.

But yes, it would be nice to have it back on the current site (and the
codes in the database).

	jaap

 
[1] <http://web.archive.org/web/20090707104326/http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table>

[2] <http://web.archive.org/web/20081205170501/http://www.iso.org/iso/customizing_iso_3166-1.htm>