Talk:List of FIPS country codes

Question: What reason does the US government have for using this instead of ISO 3166? Is this just another example of the American insistence on doing everything different from everyone else in the world? -- SJK
 * When was FIPS introduced? If it predates ISO 3166 (which first appeared in 1974), then it would be understandable that they didn't want all the work of switching over. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 17

Surely it can't be that difficult to switch? One can write a program in five minutes to do the conversion. -- SJK

And what about the paper documentation? --Zundark, 2001 Nov 17

Country codes were invented for use in computer data processing. Their primary use is for computer purposes (thats why it is a FIPS -- Federal Information Processing Standard). I doubt much paper documentation uses them. But even if it did, all they'd need is an internal style guide or something that said "we use the following country codes from ISO 3166 for all new documents:... some documentation produced before the changeover uses the obsolete FIPS country codes, which are listed below:". Problem solved -- SJK

Even if all the data is in electronic format, there is much more to be done than just writing a 5-minute program. And converting everything would achieve nothing anyway, since FIPS codes serve their purpose as well as, or better than, ISO codes would. --Zundark, 2001 Nov 17

>Surely it can't be that difficult to switch? One can write a >program in five minutes to do the conversion. -- SJK

Please consider routing out ths change in all of the thousands of computer programs, hundreds of thousands/millions of documents, etc. used the the US government.

One of the drawbacks of such a code is that defunct entities may not have codes (Orange Free State for example)

Should this be a bulleted list?
Should this be a bulleted list? --Hemanshu 02:25, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * No, it works fine as it is - bulleting wouldn't add anything other than a bit of extra indenting. Jamesday 02:29, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes it should be. It looks alot better now -219.88.160.45 02:32, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The correct country in the GB is Gabon not Saudi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.26.56.89 (talk) 15:14, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Update needed
As this FIPS standard has been withdrawn, the article needs to be updated to refer to the standard in the past tense and the superseding standard needs to be referenced. &mdash;Danorton (talk) 18:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I was going to say that. It's on the NGS site somewhere. Rich Farmbrough, 19:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC).
 * I have updated two pronowns in the intro to make them past tense. I have also separated the pre 2008 updates from the post 2008 updates in the Resources section. Because of this, I removed the 'update needed' t/p. They have also made some geographical changes which I have included. Hope this helps. - Thanks, Hoshie 08:02, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Further update needed
It is almost end of 2020 and some US field officers (CPOs) *still* use this page as a reference! Can we add a prominent banner at the top of the page stating this page is maintained for historical reasons and should NOT be used any longer? Maybe have the page (automatically?) refer people to the corresponding ISO page?

scattered islands and kosovo
Hello all,

I readded the five codes for the French Scattered Islands of Bassas da India (BS), Europa Island (EU), Glorioso Islands (GO), Juan de Nova Island (JU), and Tromelin Island (TE) to the list. Even though these places became a part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands three years ago, they were listed after this in FIPS 10-4 due to the fact the government is still based in Reunion. Here's the note the NGA has on its page:

''Bassas da India, Europa Island, Glorioso Islands, Juan de Nova Island, and Tromelin Island together make up the Îles Éparses and are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands. However, these islands are still physically administered from Reunion (These islands are claimed by Madagascar; Tromelin Island is also claimed by Mauritius and Seychelles).''

I have also added the kosovo-note T/P besides Kosovo itself so to avoid any NPOV problems since this was a US Gov standard. Hope this helps. - Thanks, Hoshie 21:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I've also read through the list and it seems that the standard listed South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (SX) as "South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands". They also listed Akroiri (AX) and Dhekelia (DX) as "Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area" and "Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area" as short form names. I have updated our list to be in sync with theirs. Hope this helps. - Thanks, Hoshie 09:24, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

new layout and new codes
Hello all,

Over the last few days I've created a new layout with tables similar to the one used at ISO 3166-1. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) published two new lists for countries and dependencies. The dependencies list had changes, and these have been folded into the list. Someone added the ISO codes for Montenegro and Serbia; they have been replaced by the FIPS codes since they are not the same. The Netherlands Antilles is still on the list due to the fact the NGA has not done anything yet. The State Department has issued codes for Curacao and Sint Maarten (see ), but they haven't been added by NGA yet. Hope this all helps. - Thanks, Hoshie 02:06, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070106052615/http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/fips_files.htm to http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/fips_files.htm

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External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on List of FIPS country codes. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110903191340/http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/gazetteers2.html to http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/gazetteers2.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20101121211606/http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/FIPS10-4_match.pdf to http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/FIPS10-4_match.pdf

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Removal of content re withdrawal of the FIPS standard
Here, I've reverted the addition of a bolded unsupported assertion re the withdrawal the FIPS standard and an an unattributed request that the codes "on this page" not be used. The article section Federal Information Processing Standards may be useful in reinserting some information related to this, but the bolding and the request were inappropriate here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 10:35, 20 November 2020 (UTC)