Talk:ISO 3166-1

flags (a reversion of an IP edit to Taiwan made me look into it)

We are currently having a rel. stable page here that has no flags for Taiwan, Western Sahara (argument: no UN member states), but we do have flags for the BES islands (NL flag), Hong Kong and Macao (own flags). Is there a reasoning behind that that I am missing? or should for consistency all countries that are not UN members have no flags? L.tak (talk) 13:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The problem is they recognise Taiwan as "TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA", and I don't think that the Chinese province has its own flag. Hong Kong and Macau, the BES islands, Aland, etc., do have flags. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 14:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, as far as the BES islands, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, are concerned, I am wondering which flag you are referring to? The sovereign country flag?
::Another way of looking at TW: I agree that TW here is Taiwan, Province of China here; but it seems that it is ROC that is administring the ISOxxx-2 entity. Wouldn't it be arguable that we choose the administring entity as the one from which we choose the flag (Curacao uses Curacao's flag, not because the Kingdom of the Netherlands so demanded, but out of their choice) L.tak (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Another point is the palestinian territories, which is currently represented by the palestinain authority flag, which also does not sound as an entity requiring a noflag? L.tak (talk) 15:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm referring to the official flag of the area (official as defined by the controlling power acknowledged by the ISO). Curacao has an official flag (being whatever its legal status is) which is used in Curacao, and has legal status there in the eyes of the Dutch government. Svalbard, as a counterpoint, has no flag, so I the Norwegian flag is used. While I do see the argument for administering entity, I feel that this list, since it is completely defined by the ISO, should follow their POV (although I wouldn't go so far as to put the PRC flag on Taiwan). Palestine is "PALESTINIAN TERRITORY, OCCUPIED", so while I'm amused by that political statement, I think it should also be noflagged. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 15:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Ok, seems like a defendable standpoint to me. Flagging TW with a PRC-flag seems to be taking it a bit too far indeed ;-)... Will change the Palestinian entry... L.tak (talk) 15:51, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

It must be added the flag of for Republic of China (Taiwan), no matter political recognition by the UN.
1. It is truth that Republic of China is not recognized by the UN, but this article is not relevant with United Nation.
2. ISO does not belong to UN, and ISO defines itself as a non-governmental organization.
3. Adding country flag is to make readers more visually know the countries or places. This is what wikipedia is for. Otherwise in ISO website in Switzerland, it does not offer any nation flag. Due to this reason, should we remove all nation flags!
4. It is truth that the name of TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA is used in ISO website, and it should not be changed until official changes. But it is strongly recommend that adding a footnote to explain the real status of Taiwan or link into relevant reference. It is bad to left flagicon blank without any explanation.
5. To conclude, Adding the flag for Republic of China (Taiwan) is necessary and suitable for this article Consistency. The name of TAIWAN, PROVINCE OF CHINA will not change. Adding a footnote to explain the real status of Taiwan, such as good example in zh-edition of it.David30930 (talk) 21:54, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Good points! I totally agree. My efforts putting in the ROC flag a year ago got reverted by someone insisting the UN membership standpoint. Thanks for pointing out that not only is ISO not part of the UN, more importantly Wikipedia is NOT part of the UN and by not displaying the flag but showing the rest of the flags is non-NPOV. Would anyone disagree? I will reinsert the flag when I got some time. Mistakefinder (talk) 18:23, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to not include the flags for Antarctica, Palestine, Taiwan, and Western Sahara. They are not part of the standard and we're not claiming they are – we're just including them for reference. In fact, there should be a note to that effect. We have the images, they are used in the articles on those places and elsewhere. We should include them here. —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 00:22, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should just remove all the decorative flags. But as long as it doesn't cause an increase in the number of nationalist editors who want to change the names away from those used by ISO 3166-1 (or a dramatic increase in the number of nationalist editors screwing around with the flags), I don't care that much. Anomie⚔ 16:23, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, GeoNames GeoTree shows the subject flags, apparently without complaint in their forums or elsewhere. They use WP as a source for their territory and country subdivision flags (probably including those at issue), too :) —[AlanM1 (talk)]— 14:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Err, good for them? Anomie⚔ 16:32, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

So, this controversy is alive again. Someone added the Taiwan flag, so I boldly added the flags for Antarctica, Western Sahara, and Palestine. I also added what I believed to be an accurate description of the position of the ISO in listing these areas, and WP in so doing and showing their flags, as being totally unrelated to their political status or independence. Both edits were then reverted, citing no consensus.

I contend that, by omitting some flags while choosing to show others, WP is actually making a political statement, which is wholly inappropriate. It should be all or nothing, IMO, but I'd hate to see yet another article damaged by "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". We have those flag images, and they are shown elsewhere. They are somewhat informative, and add some decoration to an otherwise dry article. Other non- or partially-independent territories are shown in the table, some with their own flags, without implying anything about their political status. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

• My thinking is in line with Anomie; if this table invites nationalist strife, then removing flags would help reduce friction. They're just decorative, anyway, and as far as I can tell the flags are not actually part of the standard. (Hence some flags get used on multiple rows, which seems a little odd for a standard setting out unique designators for each different territory). However, if we did have flags, it would be better to include them all rather than have selective omissions which would effectively be OR (editors, not sources, would be choosing whether or not to put a flag on each row). bobrayner (talk) 14:39, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Simple solution: remove all the flags. They are not part of the standard and are simply decorative, misleading WP:FLAGCRUFT. Jpatokal (talk) 02:00, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorted. No flags, no controversy, no IP edits (less likely because templates scare fly-by IP editors), no 3RR, no nothing. doktorb _words^deeds 03:38, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Not quite. I think they are useful. Yes, I don't know them all, but it makes it a lot easier to identify countries and have an idea of what's in. Non-text icons can be called cruft (why not) or decorative (why not), but I go for: visual identification. The fact that in some locations that has strong political connotations, does not mean we shouldn't use them at those places where it's not.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by L.tak (talk • contribs) 07:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not up to us, though, to decide where the supposed "political connotations" should prevent showing the flag. That's taking a side in a political dispute. It's sad that has been allowed to result in losing them all, instead of showing them all. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:31, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted L.tak's edit (which had put all the flags back except the 4 that they thought did not belong in the article). I contend that the discussion above shows absolutely no support for leaving the article in that state. Some of us prefer all the flags, while others prefer none if all is a problem. So, none it is. Right? Please don't revert unless you can demonstrate support for showing only some flags. (Note that I also fixed a number of other problems with spurious brackets and inconsistent sorting that had crept in with all the hacking) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:52, 24 September 2012 (UTC) (First sentence above clarified/dis-ambiguated —[AlanM1(talk)]— 13:53, 24 September 2012 (UTC))

Thanks Alan, those spurious bits came from Microsoft Word's find+replace function and it being very early in the morning :) I have to say that usually I would argue in favour of keeping flags, indeed during a discussion about flags on Wikipedia I tried to advocate a "flags for everything" policy. HOWEVER, we can't have the push-me/pull-me repetition going on with this article. The amount of reverting and re-reverting was far too much for an article which hasn't got flags as its central focus. Removing the flags seems to be the logical solution. doktorb _words^deeds 08:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

My statement (+ reversion as I missed the consensus on this change; procedurally I would have done this differently) was merely one of disappointment. I am not planning on having much discussions on it (there are much, much more interesting discussions then to focus attention on). Its a pity... L.tak (talk) 08:50, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is a pity. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 13:53, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

ISO still considers the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan as "legitimate" despite having been almost entirely erased by Taliban, so remove all flags?--Jusjih (talk) 03:39, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Edit notice

I've decided to be bold and create Template:Editnotices/Page/ISO 3166-1, which is shown above the edit form when someone goes to edit this page. Hopefully it will stop at least some of the drive-by IP editors who continually change "Taiwan, Province of China". I stand ready to adjust the wording or remove the editnotice subject to any consensus formed here. Anomie⚔ 14:29, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that's an excellent idea, though I'm not optimistic that it will work, given the number of IP editors who've ignored the prominent comment around Taiwan's entry. There have been four or five such edits in the last few weeks, all from IP editors: is it worth suggesting semi-protection? Dricherby (talk) 15:03, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I considered semi-protection, but I just don't see that the current level of disruption rises to the level required at WP:SEMI or WP:ROUGH. Feel free to ask at WP:RFPP if you disagree, though, as I don't normally handle protection requests so I'm not really familiar with the criteria used in practice. Anomie⚔ 15:19, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree this is helpful. Will edit it a bit to conform a bit more with the wiki-philosophy... L.tak (talk) 15:26, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Brrr, it's protected! L.tak (talk) 15:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, all editnotices are protected to prevent certain kinds of sneaky vandalism that could make it impossible for most people to figure out how to edit the page. What changes would you make? Anomie⚔ 15:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

It's a pity that's needed.... I'd like to change it to:

L.tak (talk) 16:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Why invite people to start discussions that have zero chance of success, since using a country name other than that in the ISO 3166-1 standard in this article would go directly against WP:V and WP:OR? If by some evil miracle consensus actually does decide to do that, we can change the editnotice then. Anomie⚔ 16:37, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Because explaining over and over again is way better than dictating and saying: forget it, it's not going to happen. IMO, users should be pointed to procedure while at the same time be shown this is not likely to change. See also the edit notice on Jesus... L.tak (talk) 16:42, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

The difference is that the issue at Jesus is a MOS issue subject to local consensus. Since a local consensus here is not going to overturn WP:V and WP:OR, I still don't see the need for inviting people to start discussions just so that can be repeated over and over again. But I wouldn't be opposed to changing the first sentence of the current notice to something like "Wikipedia's policies on Verifiability and No original research require that we use the country names defined in the ISO 3166-1 standard when stating what the standard contains." to make that more explicitly clear. But let's see what anyone else here thinks. Anomie⚔ 19:11, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, let's have the input of others indeed (but I do like the text you proposed 1 line up (although the word country should be "countries and territories" or the like))... L.tak (talk) 19:57, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

(1) I'm not familiar with the details of semi-protection, either, and was just putting it out there as an idea, rather than pushing for it.

(2) Everything on Wikipedia can be overturned by establishing a consensus so I don't see any point in advertising that, hey, in this specific case, the "page policy" (for want of a better term) can be overturned by establishing a consensus. Anyone who cares enough about Wikipedia to start such a debate and contribute meaningfully to it, already knows they can do so.

(3) I fully agree with using the same names for territories as ISO uses but I disagree that it's against WP:V or WP:OR to use different terms. The article links to a particular interpretation of the phrase "Taiwan, Province of China": why is it unverifiable or original research to say that the code TW means Taiwan but verifiable and not original research to say that it means "Taiwan, Province of China" and then wikilink to Taiwan? It's manifestly obvious that ISO is talking about that particular country/territory/entity, in the same way that it's manifestly obvious that, say, this news article is talking about this Lance Armstrong and not this one. Dricherby (talk) 21:26, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

It's against WP:V to say that the ISO 3166-1 standard says TW is "Taiwan", because that is not verifiable: the standard actually says "Taiwan, Province of China". And us trying to decide what the standard "really should have said" would be against WP:OR. In places where we are not directly quoting the standard, such as the non-direct-quote portions of ISO 3166-1#Naming and code construction, we can and do paraphrase it to the accepted common name. And just because our article on the political entity is under a different title doesn't mean we can't wikilink to it. Anomie⚔ 22:28, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

eSwatini vs Eswatini

This Wikipedia page is about the standard ISO 3166-1 and, consequently, must adhere to that standard. The relevant ISO 3166 page clearly states that the full name of the country is "the Kingdom of Eswatini", that the English short name is "Eswatini" and that the Swazi short name is "eSwatini". Misha Wolf (talk) 11:13, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Which name to use?

The various ISO 3166-related Wikipedia articles generally use a title cased version of ISO's short name (as opposed to ISO's short name lower case). But there are some inconsistencies. For example, MK's name is shown as the short name [Macedonia (the former Yugoslav Republic of)] in the ISO_3166-1 article but the short name lower case [Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of] in the ISO_3166-1_alpha-2 article. For CD, ISO_3166-1 uses the short name lowercase but drops one "the" [Congo (Democratic Republic of the)], while ISO_3166-1_alpha-2 uses the short name but adds an extra "the" [Congo, the Democratic Republic of the]. There are a handful of others. Are there any objections to consistently using a title cased version of the short name as the ISO name in Wikipedia ISO 3166 articles? DRMcCreedy (talk)

Name differences within the ISO 3166-1 Standard
(Differences not involving the word "the" are hightlighted)

title cased short name	short name lower case
Bahamas	Bahamas (the)
British Indian Ocean Territory	British Indian Ocean Territory (the)
Cayman Islands	Cayman Islands (the)
Central African Republic	Central African Republic (the)
Cocos (Keeling) Islands	Cocos (Keeling) Islands (the)
Comoros	Comoros (the)
Congo	Congo (the)
Congo, Democratic Republic of the	Congo (the Democratic Republic of the)
Cook Islands	Cook Islands (the)
Dominican Republic	Dominican Republic (the)
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)	Falkland Islands (the) [Malvinas]
Faroe Islands	Faroe Islands (the)
French Southern Territories	French Southern Territories (the)
Gambia	Gambia (the)
Holy See	Holy See (the)
Korea (Democratic People's Republic of)	Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of)
Korea, Republic of	Korea (the Republic of)
Lao People's Democratic Republic	Lao People's Democratic Republic (the)
Marshall Islands	Marshall Islands (the)
Moldova, Republic of	Moldova (the Republic of)
Netherlands	Netherlands (the)
Niger	Niger (the)
Northern Mariana Islands	Northern Mariana Islands (the)
Philippines	Philippines (the)
Russian Federation	Russian Federation (the)
Sudan	Sudan (the)
Taiwan, Province of China	Taiwan (Province of China)
Turks and Caicos Islands	Turks and Caicos Islands (the)
United Arab Emirates	United Arab Emirates (the)
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the)
United States Minor Outlying Islands	United States Minor Outlying Islands (the)
United States of America	United States of America (the)

The ISO standard is not an error-free platform.

First of all, there are content errors.

As the principle is to stick to the original information, those mistakes can be pointed out by adding notes to the Wikipedia articles where appropriate.

In this way, content and consistency are preserved.

But when ISO is lacking consistency itself, other choices have to be made if we don't want the Wikipedia articles to become chaotic in style and presentation.

The ISO OBP mentions 'Short name', 'Short name lower case' and 'Full name'.

This doesn't reflect reality: if 'PHILIPPINES' is the short name then the short name lower case is 'Philippines'.

However, their input is 'Philippines (the)' which is the long name lower case; a change of case should not alter the content, nor should a comma be replaced by parentheses (CD, MK and many others).

The full name is displayed as 'the Republic of the Philippines', a weird title case as the initial 'the' is lower case.

Moreover, questions about content emerge with the use of all those superfluous initial 'the' words: do they really belong to those countries' official names?

The French official website says 'REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE', not 'LA REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE'.

A Belgian document shows 'KONINKRIJK BELGIE', not 'HET KONINKRIJK BELGIE'.

As general title case rules are not universally standardized, the best option would be to use a specific version, namely start case, for ISO's short form country names.

It is the only way to avoid controversy while maintaining the highest degree of consistency and leaving the content untouched. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeerBuildsBetterBodies (talk • contribs) 06:42, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

@Drmccreedy: I wouldn't object to consistently using either column in your table for all of those examples. I would object to BeerBuildsBetterBodies's proposal of capitalizing words such as "and" and "of". Either way it might be helpful to clarify in the article which field is used, where it currently says "upper/lower case". Anomie⚔ 13:09, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

None of the inconsistencies I plan to fix involve casing, so I see that as a secondary issue. Switching from the existing title case to start case would change a large number of names in the ISO 3166-related articles so I oppose that. I also dislike it on aesthetic grounds. DRMcCreedy (talk) 17:27, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

How about adding footnotes to these countries and areas? If yes, we may also avoid adding more columns for full names and local short names of many countries and areas, especially where English is spoken.--Jusjih (talk) 04:02, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

The name changes to this article happened quite a while ago. Is there really a need to add the full names? If so, footnotes would probably work, depending on how many there are. It would be ugly to have footnotes on most of the items but if there are just a handful of differences I'd support it.DRMcCreedy (talk)

The list of ISO 3166 country codes already has "short name lower case (title case)" and any "full name" of a country or an area, and the list of countries and dependencies and their capitals in native languages already has "local short name". Thus adding footnotes to show variant names of countries and areas is redundant for now. I see the differences in the above table mostly about prefixing "the", with a few involving punctuation especially "Falkland Islands (Malvinas)" vs. "Falkland Islands (the) [Malvinas]" and "Taiwan, Province of China" vs. "Taiwan (Province of China)" while heavily disputed.--Jusjih (talk) 01:43, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

North Macedonia and any disputes settled in the future

I would like to ask what we will do when ISO 3166 renames Macedonia. Removing it from the sortable table of disputes will be neater, but "erasing the history". Keeping it in the table is possible by marking it a settled dispute, though making the table longer.--Jusjih (talk) 22:16, 24 February 2019 (UTC)

ISO 3166-1 finally updated it's item for North Macedonia. I did remove it from the disputed table but put information about the dispute in a note attached to the North Macedonia item so it isn't truly erased. That seems to be a middle path and keeps the dispute table from being cluttered with resolved disputes. DRMcCreedy (talk) 01:29, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Personally I don't see much point in having a footnote to perpetuate the naming dispute now that it has been settled. Anomie⚔ 18:01, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

I have no objection to it being removed. DRMcCreedy (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Sortable table doesn't seem to sort correctly on first column (English Short Name)

For some reason,

 "Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba" sorts between "Cabo Verde" and "Cayman Islands"
 "Saint Martin (French part)" sorts between "Cocos" and "Colombia"
 "Congo, Democratic Republic of the" sorts between "Czechia" and "Denmark" (sorting on "Democratic"?)
 "Palestine, State of" sorts between "Sri Lanka" and "Sudan" (sorting on "State of"?)

There are more.

How do we fix these so that the table sorts correctly? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zonker.in.geneva (talk • contribs) 09:16, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

It's sorting by the alt attributes on the flag images. I don't know why we even have flag images here, but switching from {{flagicon}} to {{flagdeco}} fixes it. That probably also improves the situation for screen readers since it won't uselessly read something like "Afghanistan Afghanistan" or "image: Afghanistan. Afghanistan" for most rows.

BTW, don't change the displayed names other than to match updated information from the ISO. See the page's edit notice for details. Anomie⚔ 12:40, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Markup

The markup you deleted doesn't try to reproduce Template:ISO 3166 code, Anomie. Its purpose is to automate generating country tables. If you don't know what something is needed for, why not ask instead of rushing to undo? (especially since the change is not visible) Guarapiranga (talk) 12:44, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps instead of adding kilobytes of <section> to the article in some hacky attempt to automate generating country tables, you should generate the tables directly from the dataset used for Template:ISO 3166 code or something else that doesn't involve cluttering articles with complex extraneous markup? Anomie⚔ 14:14, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

And who's going to maintain that, Anomie? The point is to make data used across WP consistent with the article in which it is actively curated. Guarapiranga (talk) 20:07, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Table alignment

The countries are in disarray, Anomie, that's why I changed it. My mistake was to use cscew instead of cscw. Now, are you going to fix it, or shall I? Guarapiranga (talk) 14:03, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

As I've said in earlier discussions on this page, my personal opinion is that we should remove all the decorative flags in the first place. But if we are going to change around the template used to display flags here, we will need to make sure we don't re-surface earlier problems with flags that were discussed on this talk page. Given your track record here so far, I'd strongly recommend against you doing it. I don't have time right now (it's time for me to go to work), so you will likely have to be patient. Anomie⚔ 14:13, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

After a little testing, this seems like it could use a bit more discussion. It seems to be a choice between widespread minor pixel misalignment and majorly resizing a few that aren't near the standard size.

Current	Proposed
Namibia	Namibia
Nauru	Nauru
Nepal	Nepal
Netherlands	Netherlands
New Caledonia	New Caledonia
New Zealand	New Zealand
Nicaragua	Nicaragua
Niger	Niger
Nigeria	Nigeria
Niue	Niue
Norfolk Island	Norfolk Island
North Macedonia	North Macedonia
Northern Mariana Islands	Northern Mariana Islands
Norway	Norway

Or we could finally just get rid of the decorations. Anomie⚔ 12:14, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

The one throwing everything off on that sample you selected is New Caledonia, Anomie. No flag is supposed to be that wide—in fact they're two—and that's been discussed at template talk:country data New Caledonia. Guarapiranga (talk) 09:50, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Nepal is also displayed significantly smaller. Anomie⚔ 12:01, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, bc their flag is taller and narrower than everyone else's. That's precisely what {{flaglist}} and {{flagg}} are for. Doesn't the proposed column look better than the current one to you? It does to me. Guarapiranga (talk) 03:23, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Independence?

It says that each entry includes:

Independent (# denotes the country is considered a sovereign state) and then in the table underneath the end column is green if independent and red if not.

I don't know what # refers to, is that meant to be a number? Does anyone know where it says that independent = sovereign state? Because its a bit confusing, if we take Palestine for example, it is included in List of Sovereign States but ISO says it is not independent? Does anyone know where to find the definition of what ISO means when it says independent/not independent?Selfstudier (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I've removed the "#" comment because it's clearly not used in the article. I'm not sure how ISO makes the determination. It might be at https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:iso:3166:-1:ed-2:v1:en but that part of the table of contents is only available if you pay them money. DRMcCreedy (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: You cannot access the complete ISO list without buying it. You may, however, browse the countries in the ISO website to find the information about the countries, including the ISO classification of independence. It can be accessed from several places, among them from here, and you may be interested in these two: Palestine and Vatican State. Their definition of independence will probably be found somewhere behind their pay wall. --T*U (talk) 20:18, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, I am not going to pay over $ to find out what they mean. I did find several sources claiming that what it means in the case of Palestine is that it is occupied and that therefore they are prevented from exercising full (ie de facto) sovereignty (even though they are de jure sovereign). However without a clear definition from the horse rather than a third party, then thisparameter is pretty much useless as a criterion for anything.Selfstudier (talk) 20:43, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Right. At this point it just reflects the Yes/No value of the ISO 3166 "Independent" field. I'm curious what ISO's definition/determination is but I'd bet being vague enough to cover Antarctica, Bouvet Island, Greenland, Hong Kong, and Palestine renders it pretty useless. DRMcCreedy (talk) 21:22, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Drmccreedy: I am not sure what you mean by being "being vague enough to cover". The standard is supposed to give codes "for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest". It covers all the areas you mention, but none of them are coded as "Independent". I do not see how this is "pretty useless". --T*U (talk) 21:37, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I just meant that I doubt there is a precise definition that would cover all of these use cases of "not independent" geographical areas. If ISO has one, I think it should definitely be added to the article. The "independent" field is part of the standard so I understand why it's part of the article, even if I don't understand ISO's definition. DRMcCreedy (talk) 22:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Why is Palestine not an independent country while the Holy See (another UN observer state) is considered to be independent? Why are the Cook Islands and Niue also considered to be not independent? If so, why are they still listed on the list of sovereign states? 2001:8003:9008:1301:F0D6:2B9B:76:77AE (talk) 02:41, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

For the ISO designation you would have to ask the ISO. For Wikipedia's List of sovereign states, the criteria is present on that page. CMD (talk) 04:24, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

@BeerBuildsBetterBodies and Anomie: May I mediate your dispute on whether to add a column about sovereignty of each country and area? Maybe a footnote in each cell will suffice as a compromise.--Jusjih (talk) 21:58, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally I'm wary of adding non-ISO content to the table, since the scope of the article is the ISO 3166-1 standard. But I'm not going to fight about it, at this point I'm waiting to see what others who watch this article think.

As for the values of the column, since the standard draws on UN recognition then the data from https://www.un.org/dppa/decolonization/en/nsgt seems reasonable to assume is accurate, and "Disputed" for Taiwan seems reasonable, but I'm much less sure about the others. For Palestine, for example, I don't think "UN observer" really captures the situation (do we have a good article about that to link to?). Anomie⚔ 22:18, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, I've never thought this was a dispute nor do I want an edit war either. And I agree that one should refrain from adding content not directly related to the subject (ISO 3166-1). But that column was taken from the infamous 'List of ISO 3166 country codes' (the only valuable data in it) and nobody appears to have a problem with it there. And yes, I had the same thoughts about the 'UN observer' entries because they are pretty meaningless and even lead to confusion (1 entry for a 'Yes', 1 for a 'No'). Maybe someone can come up with some better info that explains the 'Independent' status. BeerBuildsBetterBodies (talk) 00:50, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

@Onel5969: just reverted BeerBuildsBetterBodies's edit. I added an end footnote to discourage adding back excessive information already covered by the list of ISO 3166 country codes#Current ISO 3166 country codes.--Jusjih (talk) 14:47, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Talking about excessive information, that's exactly what the above-mentioned list is: except for the 'Sovereignty' column all it contains is duplicate data that can be found in ISO 3166-1 with, not to forget, an 'Official state name' column that is pure unacceptable nonsense. BeerBuildsBetterBodies (talk) 17:23, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

IP editor ("common names")

188.3.166.104 has been reverted once before about the change to "common names" (such as adding or taking away labels from country names). This could enter a to-and-fro editing debacle so it will need to be discussed here before going to page protection and elsewhere. doktorb _words^deeds 21:32, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

The name column was previously discussed here. Multiple editors have reverted 188.3.166.104's changes. At this point they're disruptive. DRMcCreedy (talk) 23:44, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Problems with the lede paragraph

I don't have strong views about the edits of 27 October 2020 except for the description of ISO 3166-1 as an "internal standard". I don't know what the editor meant by this but it doesn't make sense.

Reviewing these edits, I've noticed a pre-existing problem with this paragraph. It used to say:

ISO 3166-1 is part of the ISO 3166 standard [...]. The official name of the standard is Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes. It defines three sets of country codes:

It now says:

It is the first part of the ISO 3166 standard [...], titled Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes.

Both the previous wording and the new wording make it unclear what is called Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes. Is it ISO 3166 or is it ISO 3166-1?

Well we know that it is the latter, but both wordings are confusing.

Any suggestions?

Thanks. Misha Wolf (talk) 13:00, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

My suggestion would be:

ISO 3166-1 (Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes) is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It is the first part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization.

It removes the inaccurate "internal" description and clarifies what's being named. DRMcCreedy (talk) 17:40, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Great! Will you make the edit? Thanks. Misha Wolf (talk) 17:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Done. DRMcCreedy (talk) 18:28, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Misha Wolf (talk) 18:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

New Archive 1 page created for this Talk page

Given that this Talk page had become extremely long and had sections on it dating back to 2003 that had either been resolved long ago or were no longer relevant, I followed the H:ARC manual process and created a new Talk:ISO 3166-1/Archive 1 page. I moved older discussions to that page, trying to keep discussions here that were either new, unresolved, or seemed very important to continue to have on this main Talk page. If you think any sections I moved to Talk:ISO 3166-1/Archive 1 should remain on this page, they can be easily copied/pasted back to this page. There are probably a couple more conversations on this page that could be archived, as it is still quite long, but I have not been active enough on this page to know which should be archived. The archive page is also searchable from the box at the top of the page. Hopefully this will make it easier for people to find new discussions on this Talk page. - Dyork (talk) 02:46, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Dependent territories and areas of geographical interest

Misha Wolf, you said that ISO 3166-1 section 1 (titled "Scope") defines "country name" as "name of a country, dependency, or other area of particular geopolitical interest". Where is that? I couldn't find it. I looked at:

• https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html
• https://www.iso.org/glossary-for-iso-3166.html

I figured the article was outdated from its lede, stating that ISO 3166-1... is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, when ISO's own website clearly states:

it does not define the names of countries – this information comes from United Nations sources

— 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 09:57, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, ISO 3166 does not define the names of countries (etc). It defines codes for the names of countries (etc). Misha Wolf (talk) 14:50, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

It looks like they may have moved the definition into section 3 for ISO 3166-1:2020. I see that definition in section 3.4 at https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/en/#iso:std:iso:3166:-1:ed-4:v1:en. Anomie⚔ 12:25, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it appears at the address you provided, both in section 1 (titled "Scope") and in section 3 (titled "Terms and definitions"). In addition, the "Foreword" (at the same address) states that "The ISO 3166 series provides universally applicable coded representations of names of countries (current and non-current), dependencies, and other areas of particular geopolitical interest and their subdivisions.".

By the way, here are some non-countries included in ISO 3166-1:

Antarctica,

Åland Islands,

Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba,

Bouvet Island,

...

Misha Wolf (talk) 14:50, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

What source do you use to conclude they're not countries, if not ISO itself? — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 23:15, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

At the Web address given above, the first line of sub-section 3.19 (titled "independent or not") of section 3 (titled "Terms and definitions"), is "political status of a country or territory indicated by 'yes' if independent or 'no' if not".

Go to the ISO Online Browsing Platform (OBP) at https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/

Select "Country codes"

Click on "Search"

Click on the name of a country, eg "Afghanistan"

Observe that the legend against "Independent" is "Yes"

Click on the name of a non-country, eg "Antarctica"

Observe that the legend against "Independent" is "No"

Misha Wolf (talk) 23:34, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Are you assuming only independent nations have countries? So Scotland is not a country? What source do you use to conclude that? — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 09:41, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Per discussion in section above, we do not know what ISO means/criteria they use for "independent" so not really useful for anything.Selfstudier (talk) 10:39, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

And even if we did know, it wouldn't be relevant anyway, as many entities with ISO country codes don't have sovereign states (e.g. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico), and quite a few sovereign states comprise more than one entity with ISO country codes (US, UK). In fact, this correlation of country and sovereignty is quite new, of the last 100-150 years or so, in which the European empires dissolved. Indeed, country refers to land, not state; it's a territory, not a political entity. Regardless, we should follow the source. Wherever ISO is the only source, or other sources don't explicitly disagree with it, entities with a country code (and entities with a subdivision code in the country category, e.g. Scotland) ought to be regarded as a country. In so being, yes, Antarctica is a country (and also a continent... except to flat earthers, of course). — 𝐆𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚 (talk) 11:27, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I suggest that we abandon this particular sub-thread. I trust that I have proven beyond any doubt that ISO 3166 covers "countries (current and non-current), dependencies, and other areas of particular geopolitical interest and their subdivisions.". Misha Wolf (talk) 12:05, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. DRMcCreedy (talk) 14:56, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

PS: I see that the meaning of ISO's "Independent" field has already been discussed on this page (see section Independence?). Misha Wolf (talk) 17:16, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

I made a mistake earlier when I wrote that the definition of "country name" appears in section 1 (titled "Scope") and in section 3 (titled "Terms and definitions"). It appears only in section 3, as Anomie wrote. I also made a mistake when I wrote that the "Foreword" states that "The ISO 3166 series provides universally applicable coded representations of names of countries (current and non-current), dependencies, and other areas of particular geopolitical interest and their subdivisions.". This sentence is, actually, located in the "Introduction". Misha Wolf (talk) 23:42, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

Palestine

Why is Palestine not independent? The country is a United Nations observer state. Even though a lot of its land is occupied by Israel, it has nevertheless been universally recognised as an independent country by the international community. 139.130.131.82 (talk) 08:01, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

You'd have to ask the ISO or UN. This article reports the designation in ISO 3166, which I believe follows the designation by the UN. But it probably comes down to politics and the fact that Israel still controls much of its territory. Also recognition is not "universal". Anomie⚔ 11:45, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

There is a section up the page "Independence" about this. Its paywalled at ISO and no-one really knows what it means, WP is not using it for anything afaik, so I'd just forget about it.Selfstudier (talk) 12:17, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

See also Template:Editnotices/Page/ISO 3166-1. Neither may Taiwan nor Western Sahara be considered independent in ISO 3166 due to sovereignty disputes.--Jusjih (talk) 02:20, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

This datapoint isn't used anywhere and may or may not relate solely to sovereignty disputes. We do make use of data about the latter, freely available in secondary sources.Selfstudier (talk) 09:56, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

It is not quite universally recognised, but other than the 42 Western countries, almost all the other countries in the world recognised the State of Palestine, so it is "almost" universally recognised as an independent country. Furthermore, the Cook Islands and Niue are also almost universally recognised as independent countries (apart from New Zealand, Australia and maybe a few more countries). 2001:8003:9008:1301:F0D6:2B9B:76:77AE (talk) 03:09, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Hi. As noted earlier, this article on Wikipedia is about the ISO 3166 country codes maintained by ISO. Editors at Wikipedia don't have anything to do with how ISO sets those country codes. This article is simply reporting on the country codes established by ISO. We use the list of 3166-1 country codes from ISO. If you believe they are wrong, that is not something we can fix here at Wikipedia. You will need to bring it up with ISO, typically through your government delegation to ISO. - Dyork (talk) 00:42, 12 October 2021 (UTC)

Bougainville

Any notes on what is going to be Bougainville's ISO 3166-1 code, as the next new country to be formed on planned and peaceful means in the near future? 2804:14D:8084:A496:51E6:4393:607D:C9D0 (talk) 22:57, 18 October 2022 (UTC)