HL7 Terminology (THO)
6.1.0 - Publication International flag

This page is part of the HL7 Terminology (v6.1.0: Release) based on FHIR (HL7® FHIR® Standard) v5.0.0. This is the current published version. For a full list of available versions, see the Directory of published versions

Using ISO3166 with HL7 Standards

This page describes how to use ISO 3166 with HL7 Standards.

Using ISO 3166 with FHIR R5

Summary

SourceISO 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.
VersionIf 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.
DisplayUse the Country or State/Province Name
InactiveThere are no codes that are inactive
SubsumptionNo Subsumption relationships are defined amongst the Country Codes
Filter PropertiesRegex on code - see below

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.

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

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}" 
  }]

ISO 3166 Value Sets

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

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