iso3166-updates 🌎

Software and API that checks for any updates/changes to the ISO 3166-1 and ISO 3166-2 country codes and subdivision naming conventions, as per the ISO 3166 newsletter (https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html) and Online Browsing Platform (OBP) (https://www.iso.org/obp/ui). Available via a lightweight Python software package as well as an API.

• A demo of the software and API is available here.
• A demo of the script used to pull and export all the latest updates is available here.
• A Medium article that dives deeper into iso3166-updates is available here.
• The front-end API is available here.
• The documentation for the software is available here.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• API
• Documentation
• Staying up to date
• Requirements
• Installation
• Usage (iso3166-updates)
• Usage (get_all_iso3166_updates.py script)
• Directories
• Issues
• Contact
• References

Introduction

iso3166-updates is a software and accompanying API that consists of a series of scripts that check for any updates/changes to the ISO 3166 country codes and subdivision naming conventions, as per the ISO 3166 newsletter (https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html) and Online Browsing Platform (OBP) (https://www.iso.org/obp/ui).

The ISO 3166 standard by the ISO (International Organization for Standardisation) defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, consolidated into the ISO 3166-1 standard [1], and their principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces, states, departments, regions), which comprise the ISO 3166-2 standard [2]. The ISO 3166-1 was first published in 1974 and currently comprises 249 countries, 193 of which are sovereign states that are members of the United Nations 🇺🇳 [1]. The ISO 3166-2 was first published in 1998 and as of November 2023 there are 5,039 codes defined in it [2].

Problem Statement:

The ISO is a very dynamic organisation and regularly change/update/remove entries within its library of standards, including the ISO 3166. Additions/changes/deletions to country/territorial codes occur less often in the ISO 3166-1, but changes are more frequent for the ISO 3166-2 codes due to there being thousands more entries, thus it can be difficult to keep up with and track these changes. These changes can occur for a variety of geopolitical and administrative reasons. Previously these changes were communicated via newsletters; but as of July 2013 these changes are now communicated via their online catalogue/Online Browsing Platform (OBP), or via a database, which usually costs money to subscribe to (up to $300) [3]. Usually these updates are conveyed at the end of the year, with amendments and updates occasionally published at various times throughout the year [4].

This software and accompanying API make it extremely easy to check for any new or historic updates to a country or set of country's ISO 3166-2 codes for free; with an easy-to-use interface and Python package and API, ensuring that you get the most up-to-date and accurate ISO 3166-2 codes and naming conventions.

Intended Audience:

This software and accompanying API is for anyone working with country data at the ISO 3166 level. It's of high importance that the data you are working with is correct and up-to-date, especially with consistent changes being posted every year since 2000 (excluding 2001 and 2006). Also, it's aimed not just at developers of ISO 3166 applications but for anyone working in that space, hence the creation of an easy-to-use API (https://iso3166-updates.com).

Last Updated

The list of ISO 3166 updates was last updated on March 2024, with over ~950 individual published updates. A log of the latest ISO 3166 updates can be seen in the UPDATES.md.

API

The main API endpoint is:

https://iso3166-updates.com/api

The other endpoints available in the API are:

• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/all
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/alpha/<input_alpha>
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/name/<input_name>
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/year/<input_year>
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/alpha/<input_alpha>/year/<input_year>
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/name/<input_name>/year/<input_year>
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/months/<input_month>
• https://iso3166-updates.com/api/months/<input_month>/alpha/<input_alpha>

The paths/endpoints available in the API are - /api/all, /api/alpha, /api/name, /api/year and /api/months.

• /api/all: get all of the ISO 3166 updates/changes data for all countries.

• /api/alpha: get all the ISO 3166 updates/changes data for one or more countries according to their ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, alpha-3 or numeric country codes. A single alpha code or a list of them can be passed to the API e.g. /api/alpha/AL, /api/alpha/BW, /api/alpha/FR,DE,HUN,IDN,504. If an invalid alpha code is input then an error will be returned. This endpoint can be used in conjunction with the year and month endpoints to get the country updates for a specific country and year, and the country updates for a specific country over the past number of months, respectively. This will be in the format: /api/alpha/<input_alpha>/year/<input_year> and /api/alpha/<input_alpha>/months/<input_month>, respectively.

• /api/name: get all the ISO 3166 updates/changes data for one or more countries according to their country name, as listed in the ISO 3166-1. A single country name or list of them can be passed into the API e.g. /api/name/Brazil, /api/name/Colombia, /api/name/Benin,France,Moldova. A closeness function is used to get the most approximate available country from the one input, e.g. Sweden will be used if the input is /api/name/Swede. If no matching country is found from the closeness function or an invalid name is input then an error will be returned. This endpoint can be used in conjunction with the year and months endpoint to get the country updates for a specific country name and year and the country updates for a specific country over the past number of months, respectively. This will be in the format: /api/name/<input_name>/year/<input_year> and /api/name/<input_name>/months/<input_month>, respectively.

• /api/year: get all the ISO 3166 updates/changes data for one or more countries according to a specific year, year range, or a cut-off year to get updates less than/more than a year, e.g. /api/year/2017, /api/year/2010-2015, /api/year/<2009, /api/year/>2002. If an invalid year is input then an error will be returned. This endpoint can be used in conjunction with the alpha and name endpoints to get the country updates for a specific country and year. This will be in in the format /api/alpha/<input_alpha>/year/<input_year> and /api/name/<input_name>/year/<input_year>, respectively.

• /api/months: get all the ISO 3166 updates/changes data for one or more countries from an input number of months from the present day, e.g. /api/months/12, /api/months/24, /api/months/50. A month range can also be input to get the updates published within a specified range of months, with the start and end month separated by a '-' e.g. /api/months/12-24, /api/months/36-50. If an invalid month value is input then an error will be returned. This endpoint can be used in conjunction with the alpha and name endpoints to get the country updates for a specific country over the past number of months using their ISO 3166-1 alpha code or country name, respectively. This will be in the format: /api/months/<input_month>/alpha/<input_alpha> and /api/months/<input_month>/name/<input_name>, respectively.

• /api: main homepage and API documentation.

The API was hosted and built using GCP, with a Cloud Function being used in the backend which is fronted by an api gateway and load balancer. The function calls a GCP Storage bucket to access the back-end JSON where all ISO 3166 updates are stored. Although, due to the cost of infrastructure, the hosting was switched to Vercel (https://vercel.com/).

The full list of attributes available for each country are:

• Edition/Newsletter: name and or edition of newsletter that the ISO 3166 change/update was communicated in (pre 2013), or the link to the country's ISO Online Browsing Platform page.
• Date Issued: date that the change was communicated.
• Code/Subdivision change: overall summary of change/update made.
• Description of change: more in-depth info about the change/update that was made, including any remarks listed on the official ISO page.

Documentation

Documentation for the software and accompanying API is available on the software's readthedocs page. Additionally the API's documentation is available on the API homepage. A demo of both is also available here.

Staying up to date

The list of ISO 3166 updates was last updated on March 2024.

The object storing all updates - iso3166-updates.json - for the software package is consistently checked for the latest updates using a Google Cloud Run microservice (iso3166-check-for-updates). The application is built using a custom Docker container that uses the iso3166-updates Python software to pull all the latest updates/changes from the various data sources, to check for the latest updates within a certain period e.g. the past 6-12 months (this month range is used as the ISO usually publishes their updates at the end of the year with occasional mid-year updates). The app compares the generated output with that of the updates JSON currently in the software package and will replace this json to integrate the latest updates found, such that the API will have the most up-to-date data. A Cloud Scheduler is used to call the application on the aforementioned schedule.

Additionally, a GitHub Issue in the custom-built iso3166-updates, iso3166-2 and iso3166-flag-icons repositories will be automatically created that formats and tabulates all updates/changes that need to be implemented into the JSONs on the aforementioned repos.

Ultimately, this Cloud Run microservice ensures that the software and associated APIs are up-to-date with the most latest, accurate and reliable ISO 3166-2 information for all countries/territories/subdivisions etc.

Requirements

• python >= 3.8
• iso3166 >= 2.1.1

Installation

Install the latest version of iso3166-updates via PyPi using pip:

pip3 install iso3166-updates --upgrade

Usage (iso3166-updates Python package)

Below are some examples of using the custom-built iso3166-updates Python package.

Import package:

from iso3166_updates import *

Create instance of ISO3166_Updates() class

iso = ISO3166_Updates()

Get all listed changes/updates for all countries and years:

iso.all

Get all listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for Andorra (AD):

iso["AD"]

Get all listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for BA, DE, FR, HU, PY:

iso["BA","DE","FRA","HUN","600"]

Get all listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for all countries, for years 2002, 2003 and 2004:

iso.year("2002, 2003, 2004")

Get all listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for all countries, for year range 2013-2016:

iso.year("2013-2016")

Get all listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for all countries, for all years after 2017 inclusive:

iso.year(">2017")

Get any listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for Ireland, between years 2012 and 2021:

iso.year("2012-2021").IE

Get any listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for Tanzania, with updates with year >= 2015:

iso.year(">2015").TA

Get any listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for Romania, with updates with year < 2007:

iso.year("<2007").RO

Get any listed ISO 3166 changes/updates for Yemen, with updates with year < 2010:

iso.year("<2010")["YE"]

Get any listed ISO 3166 changes/updates published over the past 12 months:

iso.months("12")

Get any listed ISO 3166 changes/updates published over the past 36-48 months:

iso.months("36-48")

Usage (get_all_iso3166_updates.py script)

Below are some examples of using the get_all_iso3166_updates.py script which is used to pull all the ISO 3166 updates from the various data sources.

Requirements:

• python >= 3.8
• iso3166-updates >= 1.3.0
• pandas >= 1.4.4
• requests >= 2.28.1
• beautifulsoup4 >= 4.11.1
• iso3166 >= 2.1.1
• selenium >= 4.10.0
• flask >= 2.3.2
• tqdm >= 4.64.0

Input parameters to get_updates function:

  # -alpha_codes ALPHA_CODES, --alpha_codes ALPHA_CODES
  #                       ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, alpha-3 or numeric code/s of the ISO 3166 countries to get updates from (default=[]-meaning use all country codes).
  # -year YEAR, --year YEAR
  #                       Selected year/years, year ranges or year to check for updates greater
  #                       than or less than specified year (default=[]).
  # -export_filename EXPORT_FILENAME, --export_filename EXPORT_FILENAME
  #                       Filename for exported ISO 3166 updates for CSV and JSON files (default="iso3166-updates").
  # -export_folder EXPORT_FOLDER, --export_folder EXPORT_FOLDER
  #                       Folder where to store exported ISO 3166 files (default="iso3166-updates-output").
  # -concat_updates CONCAT_UPDATES, --concat_updates CONCAT_UPDATES
  #                       Whether to concatenate updates of individual countries into the same json file or separate
  #                       into separate files (default=True).
  # -export_json EXPORT_JSON, --export_json EXPORT_JSON
  #                       Whether to export all found updates to json in export folder (default=True).
  # -export_csv EXPORT_CSV, --export_csv EXPORT_CSV
  #                       Whether to export all found updates to csv files in export folder (default=True).
  # -verbose VERBOSE, --verbose VERBOSE
  #                       Set to 1 to print out progress of updates function, 0 will not print progress (default=True).
  # -use_selenium USE_SELENIUM, --use_selenium USE_SELENIUM
  #                       Gather all data for each country from its official page on the ISO website which 
  #                       requires Python Selenium and Chromedriver. If False then just use country data
  #                       from its wiki page (default=True).

Get all the latest updates for all ISO 3166 countries

./get_all_updates.sh 

'''
--export_filename     Filename for exported JSON/CSV files containing updates data (default="iso3166-updates.json").
--export_folder       Folder name to store exported JSON/CSV files containing updates data (default="test-iso3166-updates).
'''

The output files from the get_all_iso3166_updates.py script for the updates/changes to an ISO 3166-2 country returns 4 columns: Edition/Newsletter, Date Issued, Code/Subdivision Change and Description of Change. For the CSV export, if more than one country input, then an additional primary key column Country Code will be prepended to the first column, which will be the 2 letter ISO 3166-1 country code.

• Edition/Newsletter: name and or edition of newsletter that the ISO 3166 change/update was communicated in (pre 2013), or the link to the country's ISO Online Browsing Platform page.
• Date Issued: date that the change was communicated.
• Code/Subdivision Change: overall summary of change/update made.
• Description of Change: more in-depth info about the change/update that was made, including any remarks listed on the official ISO page.

E.g. The output format of the exported CSV for AD (Andorra) is:

E.g. The output format of the exported JSON for AD (Andorra) is:

{
  "AD": [
      {
          "Date Issued": "2015-11-27",
          "Edition/Newsletter": "Online Browsing Platform (OBP) (https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:code:3166:AD).",
          "Code/Subdivision Change": "Update List Source.",
          "Description of Change": ""
      },
      {
          "Date Issued": "2014-11-03",
          "Edition/Newsletter": "Online Browsing Platform (OBP) (https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:code:3166:AD).",
          "Code/Subdivision Change": "Update List Source.",
          "Description of Change": ""
      },
      {
          "Date Issued": "2007-04-17",
          "Edition/Newsletter": "Newsletter I-8 (https://web.archive.org/web/20120330105926/http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_3166-2_newsletter_i-8_en.pdf).",
          "Code/Subdivision Change": "Subdivisions added: 7 parishes.",
          "Description of Change": "Addition of the administrative subdivisions and of their code elements."
      }
  ]
}

Directories

• /iso3166_updates - source code for iso3166-updates Python package.
• /iso3166-check-for-updates - all code and files related to the serverless Google Cloud Run microservice for the check-for-updates function which is a periodically called Cloud Run app that uses the Python software to check for the latest updates for all ISO 3166 countries, ensuring the API and jsons are reliable, accurate and up-to-date.
• /docs - documentation for iso3166-updates, available on readthedocs.
• /tests - unit and integration tests for iso3166-updates software and API.
• get_all_iso3166_updates.py - python module that pulls and exports all the latest ISO 3166 data from the various data sources.
• get_all_iso3166-updates.sh - shell script created to call the get_all_iso3166_updates.py script to introduce some pseudo randomness required when using Python Selenium.
• UPDATES.md - log of all the latest updates from 2022 onwards.

Issues

Any issues, errors/bugs or enhancements can be raised via the Issues tab in the repository.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments, please contact amckenna41@qub.ac.uk or raise an issue on the Issues tab.

References

[1]: ISO 3166-1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1
[2]: ISO 3166-2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-2
[3]: ISO Country Codes Collection: https://www.iso.org/publication/PUB500001
[4]: ISO Country Codes: https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html
[5]: ISO 3166-1 flag-icons repo: https://github.com/lipis/flag-icons
[6]: ISO 3166-2 flag-icons repo: https://github.com/amckenna41/iso3166-flag-icons

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