Sorry for this off-topic question:
Does someone here is aware of a standard or a de facto standard for names or codes of historical countries? For the requirement I have in mind, all countries where there was a printing press would be optimal coverage, anything going beyond 1974 (ISO 3166-3) will be better than nothing.
The Getty Thesaurus of Geographical Names (TGN; http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabularies/tgn/ ) covers some historical countries (e.g., Preussen), but is far from being complete (missing, e.g., Schaumburg-Lippe). The same holds for the MARC Code List for Countries ( http://www.loc.gov/marc/countries/countries_name.html ).
Thanks,
Jörg Knappen