FIPS 10-4 Codes and history

FIPS Publication 10-4, COUNTRIES, DEPENDENCIES, AREAS OF SPECIAL SOVEREIGNTY, AND THEIR PRINCIPAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS, as well as its predecessor FIPS Publication 10-3, provides a list of the basic geopolitical entities in the world, together with the principal administrative divisions that comprise each entity.

The codes for basic geopolitical entities are made of two letters (e.g. US for the United States of America). The codes for principal administrative divisions are four letters: the first two are the letters for the entity and the last two enumerate the regions (01, 02, ..., 99, A1, A2, ..., A9, B1, ...).

Over time, as the entities and divisions adressed by FIPS 10-4 change, some codes are retired and others are added. The principle is that a code corresponds to a geographic area. For example, the “old” Maluku division of Indonesia was split in the “new” Maluku division and the Maluku Utara division. The old division had the code ID16, and the two new divisions have the codes ID28 and ID29 respectively; thus there are different codes for the old and new Maluku, because they have different geographical extents. Such changes are announced in change notices, Change Notice 6 in this case.

While the principle is generally followed, there are exceptions. For example, the Selangor state of Malaysia (MY12) was split into Putrajaya (which received code MY17) and a “new” Selangor state, and a code should have been assigned to that “new” state. Instead, MY12 ambiguously represents the “old” and the “new” Selangor state.

For our purposes, we sometime want to augment FIPS 10-4 with codes for divisions which have not been recorded. All the virtual codes we add are of the form xx_A, xx_B, ...

The names used by FIPS 10-4 may not always be the most appropriate for a given use, and may even contains obvious mistakes. Since our goal is to expose the FIPS 10-4 data, we do not try to “improve” those names or correct mistakes. We treat the names given by FIPS 10-4 as almost arbitrary labels, with the expectation that they can be mapped, by means external to FIPS 10-4, to any set of names one may prefer. One such external mean is the list of names from the US Board on Geographic Names.

Data

The primary source of the data is:

• http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/10-3tab1.htm for some unknown version of FIPS-10-3; we label this version 399
• http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/fip10-4.htm for the original FIPS-10-4, without change notices; we label this version 400
• the change notices for FIPS-10-4 at http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/fips_files.htm; after having applied the changes up to change notice xx, we label the result version 4xx. The last update integrated here is change notice 14.

Data files:

• fips-all.txt contains all the data
• the script expand.sh produces data files for the individual versions; in those files, only the identifiers defined in the corresponding version are listed, and the fields first fips version and last fips version are equal to the corresponding version: fips-399.txt fips-400.txt fips-401.txt fips-402.txt fips-403.txt fips-404.txt fips-405.txt fips-406.txt fips-407.txt fips-408.txt fips-409.txt fips-410.txt fips-411.txt fips-412.txt fips-413.txt fips-414.txt

In addition, the script tabulate.sh produces fips-tabular.txt that makes it a bit easier to see the evolution of the codes over time.

All the files are in UTF-8, one record per line, fields delimited by _ (underscore):

1. FIPS code. For countries, it is of the form xx00.
2. first fips version. The first version in which the code is present, with the same designation and names.
3. last fips version. The last version in which the code is present, with the same designation and names.
4. designation, English. "country" for countries, "county", "state", ... for the others
5. designation, other language.
6. designation, other language.
7. designation, other language.
8. name
9. convential name
10. former name

Caveats:

• the data coming from versions 399 and 400 are without diacritics, while the data introduced by change notices is with diacritics
• for Vietnam, the content of the original publication and the content of change notice 1 are inconsistent. I started from the list of subdivisions given at http://www.statoids.com, and worked the change notices backward

Notes

Bahrain: In 2002, five governorates were established (by this decree). Change notice 12 adds five codes, but removes only one of the old ones. Given the pattern followed in similar situations, it seems that all codes before BA15 should have been retired, not just BA03.

Bangladesh: BG87 (Rangpur) is the result of a split of the Rājshāhi division, BG83; a FIPS code should have been assigned to the resulting Rājshāhi division.

Buthan: BT23 (Gasa) is the result of a split of the Punakha (BT15) district; a FIPS code should have been assigned to the resulting Punakha district. BT24 (Trashi Yangtse) is the result of a split of the Trashigang (BT19) district; a FIPS code should have been assigned to the resulting Trashigang district.

Gambia:

Kazakhstan: Version 400 has a single code KZ for the country, and version 401 introduces codes for the 14 oblasts and 3 cities as they exist in 2000. Using the history described at http://www.statoids.com/ukz.html, we can recreate the lineage from the 19 oblasts and 1 city as they existed at the time Kazakhstan became independent. We have assigned virtual FIPS 10 codes to the entities, and use the statoid names:

Liberia: LI07 (Monrovia) does not appear as a division in any source. Secondary sources indicate four counties which are not present in the primary sources:

Malaysia: MY17 (Putrajaya) is the result of a split of the Selangor state, MY12; a FIPS code should have been assigned to the resulting Selangor state. MY15 (Labuan) is the result of a split of the Sabah state; there is a code for the resulting Sabah state (MY16) but no code for the resulting Selangor state.

Mongolia: MG24 (Govisumber) is the result of a split of the Dornogovi province, MG07; a FIPS code should have been assigned to the resulting Dornogovi province.

New Zealand: versions before 410 correspond to the organization before 1989, in 22 local government regions. In 1989, New Zealand reorganized in 14 regional concils. A further adjustment occurred in 1992, and FIPS version 410 captures the result of that further adjustment, except that it does not include a code for the newly formed Tasman region. Here is a picture starting from the 1989 situtation, with virtual codes:

North Korea: FIPS 10-4 still includes KN14 Namp'o-si. According to Wikipedia, was a provincial-level Directly Governed City (Chikhalsi) from 1980 to 2004, when it was designated a "Special City" (T'ŭkgŭpsi) and made a part of South P'yŏngan (KN15). On the other hand, it is lacking codes for the Kumgangsan Tourist Region (Kŭmgangsan Kwangwang Chigu) and the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region (Sinŭiju T'ŭkpyŏl Haengjŏnggu).

Spain: FIPS 10-4 does list the 17 autonomous communities, but does not list the 2 autonomous cities, Ceuta and Melilla.

Sri Lanka: FIPS 10-4 (all versions listed here) lists the 25 districts. There is also a subdivision in 9 provinces, which is not accounted by any of the primary FIPS sources, but is returned as the result of a ADM1 query on the NGA name server (http://geonames.nga.mil/ggmagaz/geonames4.asp, “lookup tables”, “ADM 1 codes”) and is described in many secondary sources. Note that there is a single code for the two provinces Eastern and Northern:

United States: FIPS 10-4 does not have a code for the Guantanamo Bay base: we will use US_A.

Details of changes

The change notices do not detail the changes. For example, change notice 10 only describes that AF20 and AF22 have been replaced by AF39 through AF42. However, looking at the history of changes at http://www.statoids.com, we can see that this corresponds to two independent changes, AF20 replaced by AF39 and AF41 on the one hand, and the AF22 replaced by AF40 and AF42 on the other. The table below attempts to capture the changes to the smallest level of granularity. Many thanks to Gwillim Law describing the changes with enough details. This table does not yet capture the changes from version 399 to version 400.

Terms of use

To the extent possible under law, Eric Muller has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this page, the data files and scripts it presents. This work is published from the United States.

Note that this does not affect the rights other persons may have in those files. I am not qualified to determine whether such rights exist.

Contact - Thanks

History:

• September 26, 2009: added terms of use
• August 9, 2009: added some details to the changes related to Thailand, thanks to Andreas Hörstemeier
• September 28, 2008 (data): fixed a few entries; thanks to Jeroen Van Steirteghem for pointing out the mistakes
• September 9, 2008: note on New Zealand, introductory text reworked; note on Gambia; note on US
• September 8, 2008: note on Kazakhstan
• September 5, 2008 (data): incorporated change notice 14; note on Bahrain
• August 8, 2008 (data): added missing UU, Undesignated sovereignty and PJ, Etorofu Habomai, Kunashiria and Shikotan islands.
• July 27, 2008: notes on Malaysia, Mongolia, North Korea. Minor fixes to the data files to fit the format.
• July 23, 2008: notes on Liberia, Spain.
• July 22, 2008: more complete description of changes in Bahrain; note on Sri Lanka.
• July 22, 2008 (data); added the missing ID24, Sumatera Barat; fixed the name of AF12, v399.
• June 4, 2008: added data for version 399, and renamed the versions to accomodate for that.
• June 2, 2008: first version of this page.