ISO Country Codes

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Could somebody please explain to me how the ISO country code for the United Kingdom is GB??

Not sure people in NI would be happy about that... it seems a bit odd :confused:
 
Because the United Kingdom, is properly named, The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. So, the code is based upon Great Britain, rather than United Kingdom, otherwise, we'd be "United kingdom of where?" hence why the United States, is officially the United States of America.
 
Because the United Kingdom, is properly named, The United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland. So, the code is based upon Great Britain, rather than United Kingdom

Yeah but he means that the ISO country code GB is assigned to both.

Europe_ISO_3166-1.svg
 
So, the issue is that the ISO code for northern ireland, is also GB? well that's because its still part of the UK, and not an independent country..
 
So, the issue is that the ISO code for northern ireland, is also GB? well that's because its still part of the UK, and not an independent country..

but Northern Ireland is not part of "GB", hence the United Kingdom of Great Britan and Northern Ireland. Bit like "Team GB" really.

I don't have an answer, but I guess if for some reason we can't have UK as above then there's not much else recognisable you can fit into two letters
 
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Quick wiki search and:

The codes are chosen, according to the ISO 3166/MA, "to reflect the significant, unique component of the country name in order to allow a visual association between country name and country code".[7] For this reason, common components of country names like "Republic", "Kingdom", "United", "Federal" or "Democratic" are normally not used for deriving the code elements. As a consequence, for example, the United Kingdom is officially assigned the alpha-2 code GB rather than UK, based on its official name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"
 
Could somebody please explain to me how the ISO country code for the United Kingdom is GB??

Not sure people in NI would be happy about that... it seems a bit odd :confused:

Now theres a divisive statement..................

Yes there is a segment of the population which would be offended at the labelling but the only reason NI is a member state of GB is due to a greater volume of the population wishing it to be so.

(Much like the falklands)
 
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