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• Using Codes
• Code Systems
• Value Sets
• Concept Maps
• Identifier Systems

4.3.14 Using ISO 3166 Country Codes with FHIR

Vocabulary Work Group

Maturity Level: 3

Standards Status: Trial Use

4.3.14.1 Summary

Source	ISO 3166 Home Page
System	ISO 3166 is a 3 part standard, each of which defines a code system: urn:iso:std:iso:3166: Part 1, Country Codes (2-letter and 3-letter, and numerical codes) urn:iso:std:iso:3166:-2: Part 2, Subdivision (State/Province) Codes urn:iso:std:iso:3166:-3: Part 3, Historical Country Names Note: the URI used for Part 1 would be urn:iso:std:iso:3166:-1 if it were consistent with the other URIs, but urn:iso:std:iso:3166 is used for legacy reasons.
Version	If necessary to exchange the version (see below), use the year of release in the format YYYY
Code	Part 1: Any of the 2-letter, 3-letter, or numerical country name codes defined in Part 1 Part 2: Any of the codes for principal subdivisions (e.g province or state) of countries coded in Part 1 Part 3: One of the 4 letter historical country name codes defined in Part 3 The codes SHALL always be represented in upper case, but (for robustness) comparisons are case insensitive.
Display	Use the Country or State/Province Name
Inactive	There are no codes that are inactive
Subsumption	No Subsumption relationships are defined amongst the Country Codes
Filter Properties	Regex on code - see below

4.3.14.2 Version Issues

A few country codes have been reused (e.g. CS). If a version is needed, simply use the year of publication e.g. 1998.

4.3.14.3 Copyright/License Issues

ISO Maintains the copyright on the country codes, and controls it's use carefully. For further details, see the ISO 3166 Home Page

4.3.14.4 ISO-3166 Filter Properties

The Part 1 Code system identified by the URI urn:iso:std:iso:3166 contains 3 types of codes for country:

• 2-letter
• 3-letter
• Numeric

In almost all contexts of use, only one of these 3 subsets of codes are used / allowed. Value sets can be defined for these by enumerating the relevant codes. Alternatively, a regex can be used to define the value set intensionally. For example, this filter specifies only 3 letter codes:

  "filter" : [{
    "property" : "code", 
    "op" : "regex", 
    "value" : "[A-Z]{3}" 
  }]

4.3.14.5 Value Sets

This specification defines 3 commonly used value sets for use with ISO 3166 Country Codes:

• 2 letter Country Codes
• 3 letter Country Codes
• Numerical Country Codes

The latter two value sets are defined intensionally in this specification as a consequence of ISO Intellectual Property Restrictions.