From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Aug 23 2005 - 00:45:21 CDT
> From: "Doug Ewell" <dewell@adelphia.net>
>> You cannot be serious:
>> * ISO 3166-2 code elements are not necessarily alpha-3. Among many
>> other countries, France and the U.S. do not use alpha-3 code elements.
I should add that the terms "alpha-2" and "alpha-3" are only used in ISO
3166-1, not in ISO 3166-2 (where codes have variable length depending of
each country, or sometimes within the same country), and not even in ISO
3166-3 (which is used mostly to remap ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes that have
been deallocated into codes using 4 letters, because a country has
disappeared, or has been splitted, or unified within another, or has changed
its name, or because some of its territories have been grouped together into
a single code such as US minor Outlying Islands).
And Yes, I also know that ISO 3166-2 rarely use 3-letter codes for most
countries (2-positions codes are enough for French departments coded with 2
digits or 1 digit and a letter for Corsican departments or 2 letters for
oversea departments, or for US states that are coded with 2 letters); don't
infer there that these subdivision codes may be named "alpha-2" (please
reserve the term for ISO 3166-1 country codes, as I did in my previous first
messageand the first reply, and in this message).
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