ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states).
It consists of three parts:[1] The first edition of ISO 3166, which included only alphabetic country codes, was published in 1974.
The fifth edition, published between 1997 and 1999, was expanded into three parts to include codes for subdivisions and former countries.
Originally it was located at the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) in Berlin.
[1] Nine are representatives of national standards organizations: The other six are representatives of major United Nations agencies or other international organizations who are all users of ISO 3166-1: The ISO 3166/MA has further associated members who do not participate in the votes but who, through their expertise, have significant influence on the decision-taking procedure in the maintenance agency.