ISO 3166-2:GBISO 3166-2:GB is the entry for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (GBNI) in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal divisions and subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.[1] The codes and structures for the United Kingdom (UK) are provided to the ISO in Geneva by the British Standards (BS) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Primary divisionsCurrently for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for the following primary divisions and subdivisions:
As of August 2025,[update] the standard has codes for the divisions in place until 31 March 2023. On 1 April 2023, the non-metropolitan county of Cumbria was abolished and replaced by two unitary authorities (Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness), as well as the non-metropolitan counties of North Yorkshire and Somerset became unitary authorities, which as of August 2025[update] are not reflected in ISO 3166-2.
Each ISO 3166-2:GB code consists of two parts; both parts are in upper-case capital letters, and are separated by a hyphen (without spaces). The first part for the is GB, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The second part is three letters, which is the British Standard BS 6879 three-letter code of the individual subdivision. Though GB is the United Kingdom's ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code, UK is exceptionally reserved for the United Kingdom on the request of the country (United Kingdom). Its main usage is the .uk internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) and, on 28 September 2021, UK replaced GB as the official country code on motor vehicle registration plates.[2] Current codesSubdivision names are listed as in the ISO 3166-2 standard, as published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA). BS 6879 gives alternative name forms in Welsh (cy) for some of the Welsh unitary authorities (together with alternative code elements). Since this part of ISO 3166 does not allow for duplicate coding of identical subdivisions, such alternative names in Welsh and code elements are shown for information purposes only in square brackets after the English name of the subdivision.[1] Countries and province
Wales was changed from being described as a 'principality' to being described as a 'country' in the December 2011 update to the standard. England and Scotland were maintained as 'country', and Northern Ireland was maintained as 'province'.[3] Included for completeness
The codes GB-EAW, GB-GBN, and GB-UKM are only mentioned in remark part 2 in the ISO website, where they are 'included for completeness'.[1] Second-level subdivisions
The British Overseas Territories of Anguilla, Bermuda, the British Indian Ocean Territory, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, the Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands (and the Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Jersey as of 2006) have their own ISO 3166-1 codes and are not included in the United Kingdom's entry in ISO 3166-2. There are no ISO 3166-2 codes for:
ChangesThe following changes to the entry have been announced in newsletters by the ISO 3166/MA since the first publication of ISO 3166-2 in 1998. ISO stopped issuing newsletters in 2013.
The following changes to the entry are listed on ISO's online catalogue, the Online Browsing Platform:[1]
See also
References
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