Clive, Thanks very much. My apologies and I stand to be corrected. The information that I sent was based on that provided by the UN people in their Statistical Division. It is now obvious that whomever, I spoke to and corresponded with three years ago, is not as precise as the "lord of time". Once again thanks for the correction - Jake Knoppers -----Original Message----- From: Clive D.W. Feather [mailto:clive@demon.net] Sent: June 11, 2004 8:49 AM To: Infoman Cc: Mark Davis; Guy Harris; tz@lecserver.nci.nih.gov Subject: Re: Time Zone Localizations Infoman said:
Actually the numbers stay the same, Russia retains the number for the Soviet Union and united Germany retained the number for West-Germany. [...] The same happened re Ethiopia (& Eritrea), Yugoslavia, etc.
Not so. On 1990-10-30: DD DDR 278 withdrawn (3166-3 entry DDDE) DE DEU 280 replaced DE DEU 276 added New numeric code for the same political entity (Federal Germany). On 1992-06-15: SU SUN 810 withdrawn (3166-3 entry SUHH) RU RUS 643 added (and others, e.g. KZ KAZ 398) New numeric code because Russia was not the USSR. On 1990-08-14: YD YMD 720 withdrawn (3166-3 entry YDYE) YE YEM 886 replaced YE YEM 887 added Merged Yemen got a new number. On 1993-07-22: PA PAN 590 replaced PA PAN 591 added Panama got a new number when it absorbed the Canal Zone (which didn't have one). On 1993-07-16: ET ETH 230 replaced ET ETH 231 added ER ERI 232 added Ethiopia got a new number when Eritrea split off. On 1993-07-28: YU YUG 890 replaced YU YUG 891 added Yugoslavia got a new number to recognise that it was really just Serbia and Montenegro (and this number transferred to the new CS SCG code).
The perspective here is that of a jurisdictional nature. Even though the physical territory may change, the jurisdictional entity remains.
And the numeric code changes - see above.
The 3 digit numeric code and the 3-alpha code belong to are under the control of the UN and maintained by the UN Statistical system. The the official long and short names of each country are under the control of each country. However changes in names or names for "new" countries are vetted by the UN. Normally proposed changes do go through "automatically". Only rarely does a UN member object (e.g. as is the current case with "Macedonia).
The ISO 3166-1 standard takes this UN originated information and then adds/manages the 2-alpha codes.
If you look at the ISO3166MA web site, you'll see that only the numeric codes come from the UN Statistics Division. I can't find my copy of 3166, but I believe you'll find this distinction between alpha and numeric codes in it. I believe you'll also find there is a 4-digit code as well, which is derived from the two letter code by the calculation 1070+30a+b, where a represents the first letter and b the second letter (A=1, B=2, etc.). In this code, AF is 1106 and GB is 1282. -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 870 051 9937 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646 Thus plc | |