Country Codes

Codes for geopolitical entities used in the GNS are based on the U.S. Federal Information Processing Standard Publication 10-4 "Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions" (also known as FIPS PUB 10-4).

• FIPS PUB 10-4 Withdrawal

FIPS PUB 10-4 was withdrawn by the National Institute of Standards and Technology on September 2, 2008 based on Public Law 104-113 (codified OMB Circular A-119 and the National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act of 1995). The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), as the maintenance authority for FIPS PUB 10-4, has continued to maintain and provide regular updates to its content in a document known as Geopolitical Entities and Codes (GEC) (Formerly FIPS 1PUB 10-4).

The Geopolitical Entities, Names, and Codes (GENC) Standard, the US Government implementation of ISO 3166, has subsequently been designated as the replacement standard for FIPS PUB 10-4. The GENC Standard will provide a list of the basic geopolitical entities in the world, together with the principal divisions that comprise each entity. The names of the political entities are derived from official meeting records of the Foreign Names Committee of the US Board on Geographic Names (US BGN). GENC Edition 1 was published on 27 November 2012 and only includes codes at the country level. GENC ed. 2 will also include codes for administrative subdivisions. The estimated completion for GENC ed. 2 is Summer 2013. The GENC Standard may be found online at: https://nsgreg.nga.mil/doc/view?i=2324. The GENC content may be found in the GENC Registry online at: https://nsgreg.nga.mil/genc/discovery.

The GNS will continue to use GEC country codes until GENC ed. 2 is published. After which point there will likely be a transition period during which both GEC (FIPS 10-4) and GENC codes are available to the user. Future GEC updates will address administrative subdivisions exclusively. Once GENC ed. 2 is published, NGA does not plan to continue to maintain Geopolitical Entities and Codes (Formerly FIPS PUB 10-4).