[Ltru] Any information on SF?

[Mark Davis ⌛ <[e-mail]>]

(That's not "San Francisco" or "Science Fiction", or any confluence of the
two.)

We're in the process of updating to the new IANA registry, and I was
cross-checking to http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table. The code

SF stands out.

*Transitionally reserved*
BU    Burma
CS    SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
NT    Neutral Zone
*SF    Finland     Not in IANA. CLDR maps to FI??
*TP    East Timor
YU    Yugoslavia
ZR    Zaire

I had first presumed that SF is not included because it was withdrawn before
RFC1766. But SF is not even listed in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-3 as a retired code. (ISO makes it
exceptionally painful, as we all know, to get access to 3166-3:
http://www.iso.org/iso/country_codes/background_on_iso_3166/iso_3166-3.htm).
Note that http://www.iso.org/iso/iso-3166-1_decoding_table definitely has
some oddities. For example, instead of "officially assigned", for two items
it has "officiellement attribué". So for all we know, SF is just a mistake
in that table!

Does anyone know more about the code SF?

For comparison, here are the "Exceptionally Reserved", two of which are
obsolete codes.

*Exceptionally Reserved*
AC    Ascension Island     ok
CP    Clipperton Island     ok
DG    Diego Garcia     ok
EA    Ceuta, Melilla     ok
EU    European Union     ok
*FX    France, Metropolitan     Deprecated in IANA: IANA maps to FR
*IC    Canary Islands     ok
*SU    USSR     Deprecated in IANA: CLDR maps to RU AM AZ BY EE GE KZ KG LV
LT MD TJ TM UA UZ
*TA    Tristan da Cunha     ok
*UK    UNITED KINGDOM     Not in IANA. CLDR maps to GB*

Mark