UN M49

UN M49 or the Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (Series M, No. 49) is a standard for area codes used by the United Nations for statistical purposes, developed and maintained by the United Nations Statistics Division. Each area code is a 3-digit number which can refer to a wide variety of geographical and political regions, like a continent and a country. Codes assigned in the system generally do not change when the country or area's name changes (unlike ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 or ISO 3166-1 alpha-3), but instead change when the territorial extent of the country or area changes significantly, ^[1] although there have been exceptions to this rule. ^[a]

Some of these codes, those representing countries and territories, were first included as part of the ISO 3166-1 standard in its second edition in 1981, but they have been released by the United Nations Statistics Division since 1970. ^[4]

Another part of these numeric codes, those representing geographical (continental and sub-continental) supranational regions, was also included in the IANA registry for region subtags (first described in September 2006 in the now obsoleted RFC 4646, but confirmed in its successor RFC 5646, published in September 2009) for use within language tags, as specified in IETF's BCP 47 (where the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are used as region subtags, instead of UN M.49 codes, for countries and territories).

Code lists

M.49 area codes (as of December 2021)

Geographical supranational regions
(See also BCP 47 where these were imported as region subtags)

Code	Area				Count	Subregions
001	World				248	002, 009, 010, 019, 142, 150
002		Africa			60	015, 202
015			Northern Africa		7	012, 434, 504, 729, 732, 788, 818
202			Sub-Saharan Africa		53	011, 014, 017, 018
011				Western Africa	17	132, 204, 270, 288, 324, 384, 430, 466, 478, 562, 566, 624, 654, 686, 694, 768, 854
014				Eastern Africa	22	086, 108, 174, 175, 231, 232, 260, 262, 404, 450, 454, 480, 508, 638, 646, 690, 706, 716, 728, 800, 834, 894
017				Middle Africa	9	024, 120, 140, 148, 178, 180, 226, 266, 678
018				Southern Africa	5	072, 426, 516, 710, 748
010		Antarctica			1	010
019		Americas			57	021, 419
003			North America [5]		41	013, 021, 029
021				Northern America	5	060, 124, 304, 666, 840
419			Latin America and the Caribbean		52	005, 013, 029
005				South America	16	032, 068, 074, 076, 152, 170, 218, 238, 239, 254, 328, 600, 604, 740, 858, 862
013				Central America	8	084, 188, 222, 320, 340, 484, 558, 591
029				Caribbean	28	028, 044, 052, 092, 136, 192, 212, 214, 308, 312, 332, 388, 474, 500, 531, 533, 534, 535, 630, 652, 659, 660, 662, 663, 670, 780, 796, 850
142		Asia			50	030, 034, 035, 143, 145
030			Eastern Asia		7	156, 344, 392, 408, 410, 446, 496
034			Southern Asia		9	004, 050, 064, 144, 356, 364, 462,    524, 586
035			South-eastern Asia		11	096, 104, 116, 360, 418, 458, 608, 626, 702, 704, 764
143			Central Asia		5	398, 417, 762, 795, 860
145			Western Asia		18	031, 051, 048, 196, 268, 275, 368, 376, 400, 414, 422, 512, 634, 682, 760, 792, 784, 887
150		Europe			51	039, 151, 154, 155
039			Southern Europe		16	008, 020, 070, 191, 292, 300, 336, 380, 470, 499, 620, 674, 688, 705, 724, 807
151			Eastern Europe (including Northern Asia)		10	100, 112, 203, 348, 498, 616, 642, 643, 703, 804
154			Northern Europe		16	208, 233, 234, 246, 248, 352, 372, 428, 440, 578, 744, 752, 826, 831, 832, 833
155			Western Europe		9	040, 056, 250, 276, 438, 442, 492, 528,   756
009		Oceania			29	053, 054, 057, 061
053			Australia and New Zealand		6	036, 162, 166, 334, 554, 574
054			Melanesia		5	090, 242, 540, 548, 598
057			Micronesia		8	296, 316, 520, 580, 581, 583, 584, 585
061			Polynesia		10	016, 184, 258, 570, 612, 772, 776, 798, 876, 882

Other groupings

Code	Area
432	Landlocked developing countries (LLDCs)
722	Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
199	Least developed countries (LDCs)

Examples of geopolitical entities (countries or territories)
(See also ISO 3166-1 numeric for the complete set)

Code	Area
024	Angola
591	Panama
496	Mongolia
554	New Zealand
756	Switzerland
830	Channel Islands [b]

Private-use codes and reserved codes

Beside the codes standardized above, the numeric codes 900 to 999 are reserved for private-use in ISO 3166-1 (under agreement by the UNSD) and in the UN M.49 standard. They may be used for any other groupings or subdivision of countries, territories and regions.

Some of these private-use codes may be found in some UN statistics reports and databases, for their own specific purpose. They are not portable across databases from third parties (except through private agreement), and may be changed without notice.

Note that the code 000 is reserved and not used for defining any region. It is used in absence of data, or for data in which no region (not even the World as a whole) is applicable. For unknown or unencoded regions, private-use codes should preferably be used. For example, the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository uses 961 for its grouping Outlying Oceania. ^[6]

Extensions to M.49

Early editions of M.49 used one- or two-digit prefixes to designate economic regions rather than assigning 3-digit codes. These two digit prefixes were designed to be used to easily aggregate data through the use of prefix matching, and regions could be specified collectively by using the 000 code as a base to which the prefix would be added. ^[7] For example, by prefixing 13 to Algeria's code, 012, to create the five-digit code 13012, Algeria could be identified as being in North Africa (13000), which is itself in Africa (10000).

One-digit suffixes were also permitted, to specify statistics of subdivisions of countries. ^[7] For example, by suffixing 5 to the code for the United Kingdom to create the four-digit code 8265, Scotland could be represented as a subdivision of the United Kingdom. Additional suffixes could be used to represent the other constituent units of the UK.

Developed and developing regions

The United Nations Statistics Division classifies economic regions into developed and developing regions for statistical convenience. Although this classification was removed from M49 in December 2021, ^[8] it is still used by the UNSD and various United Nations reports.

Examples of economic regions
(defined for statistical use only)

Code	Area
	Developed regions
021		Northern America
150		Europe [c]
392		Japan
410		Republic of Korea [9] [10]
053		Australia and New Zealand
376		Israel [d]
018		Southern Africa [d]
	Developing regions [e]
002		Africa (sometimes excluding Southern Africa) [d]
419/019		Latin America and the Caribbean / Americas [f]
029			Caribbean
013			Central America
005			South America
142*		Asia (* excluding Japan: 392, the Republic of Korea: 410, and sometimes also Israel: 376) [d]
009*		Oceania (* excluding Australia and New Zealand: 053)
778	Transition countries [g]
172		Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)
		Transition countries of South-eastern Europe [h]

Codes no longer in use (obsolete since 1982)

Old Code	Old Area	New Code(s)
128	Canton and Enderbury Islands [i]	296
200	Czechoslovakia [j]	203, 703
720	Democratic Yemen [k]	887
230	Ethiopia	231, 232
280	Federal Republic of Germany [l]	276
274	Gaza Strip	275
278	German Democratic Republic [l]	276
396	Johnston Island [m]	581
488	Midway Islands [m]	581
530	Netherlands Antilles [n]	531, 534, 535
532	Netherlands Antilles [o]	530, 533
582	Pacific Islands (Trust Territory) [p]	580, 583, 584, 585
891	Serbia and Montenegro [q]	499, 688
890	Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [r]	070, 191, 705, 807, 891 [q]
062	South-Central Asia	034, 143
736	Sudan [s]	728, 729
810	Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [t]	031, 051, 112, 233, 268, 398, 417, 428, 440, 498, 762, 795, 804, 860
849	United States miscellaneous Pacific Islands [m]	581
872	Wake Island [m]	581
886	Yemen [k]	887

See also

• Address geocoding
• ISO 3166-1 numeric
• United Nations geoscheme
• List of countries by United Nations geoscheme

Notes

1. Through the second revision of M.49 in 1983, changes in territory did not necessarily result in changed codes. ^[2] Pakistan, for example, retains the code it was assigned in the original 1970 edition of M.49, even though Bangladesh did not separate from Pakistan until 1971 and did not officially receive a code until the first revision of M.49 was released in 1975. ^[3]
2. The Channel Islands have never been a single political entity, but a code has been maintained, for statistical use only, in the UN M.49 codification (this grouping has never been encoded in ISO 3166-1, unlike other geopolitical countries or territories), in addition to the newer separate codifications of the Bailiwicks of Jersey and of Guernsey (which were also encoded separately in ISO 3166-1).
3. Within the developed regions, Europe is sometimes defined with the exception of Transition countries, numerical code 778.
4. In international trade statistics, the Southern African Customs Union is also treated as a developed region, and Israel as a developed country in Western Asia.
5. The definition of developing countries is not standardized, but it generally excludes the transition countries.
6. For some economical analysis, this grouping currently uses the code 019 defined for all Americas, instead of using the code 419 which is assigned to Latin America and the Caribbean
7. In some reports, the transition countries may be part of developing countries, or will most often be classed separately from developed and developing countries.
8. The selected economical grouping of transition countries of South-eastern Europe is not encoded in UN M.49, but it currently includes Albania and the countries emerging from the former Yugoslavia (with the exception of Slovenia which is now considered as a developed country), for statistical use only.
9. Canton and Enderbury Islands (code 128) merged with Kiribati (code 296).
10. As of 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic (code 203) and Slovakia (code 703).
11. Democratic Yemen (numerical code 720) and Yemen (886) merged on 22 May 1990 under the name Yemen (887).
12. The German Democratic Republic (numerical code 278) accessed on 3 October 1990 to the Federal Republic of Germany (280), with effect from 3 October 1990 and have united to form a single country simply designated as "Germany" (276).
13. United States Minor Outlying Islands (numerical code 581) formed by merging Johnston Island (396), Midway Islands (488), United States Miscellaneous Pacific Islands (849), and Wake Island (872).
14. The Netherlands Antilles were dissolved in 2010
15. The Netherlands Antilles (with previous numerical code 532) was split when Aruba (533) was separated from it, and the remaining part was then given the new numerical code 530.
16. Various districts that composed the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands were split successively from the trusteeship and gained independence to form the Republic of the Marshall Islands (numerical code 584), the Federated States of Micronesia (583), and the Republic of Palau (585). The Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (580) was later set up in political union with the U.S.
17. Serbia and Montenegro (numerical code 891) dissolved on 3 June 2006 into 2 independent countries: Montenegro (499) and Serbia (688).
18. Prior to 1 January 1992, the same numerical code 890 referred to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was composed of six republics, before the independence of Slovenia (705), Croatia (191), Bosnia and Herzegovina (070), and the Republic of Macedonia (807); the remaining Yugoslav Federation was then dissolved and renamed to form the Federation of Serbia and Montenegro (891, now also dissolved).
19. South Sudan (numerical code 728) became independent from Sudan (736) on July 9, 2011. The remaining part of Sudan was given the new numerical code 729.
20. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved in 1991 into 15 independent countries:
    • in Western Asia: Armenia (numerical code 051), Azerbaijan (031) and Georgia (268);
    • in Central Asia: Kazakhstan (398), Kyrgyzstan (417), Tajikistan (762), Turkmenistan (795) and Uzbekistan (860);
    • in Northern Europe: Estonia (233), Latvia (428) and Lithuania (440);
    • in Eastern Europe: Belarus (numerical code 112), the Republic of Moldova (498), Ukraine (804), and the Russian Federation (643).

Citations

1. United Nations 1996, p. 2.
2. United Nations 1982, p. vi.
3. United Nations 1975, p. 1.
4. United Nations 1970; Jensen et al. 1991.
5. Davis, Mark (2011-07-15). "LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM". Internet Assigned Numbers Authority . Archived from the original on 2011-11-11. Retrieved 2012-04-17.
6. Davis, Mark (2023-10-25). "Unicode Locale Data Markup Language (LDML)". unicode.org. Retrieved 13 December 2023.
7. United Nations 1970, p. 4.
8. "Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49)". United Nations Statistics Division. Retrieved June 7, 2022. There is no definition of developing and developed countries (or areas) within the UN system. However, in 1996 the distinction between "Developed regions" and "Developing regions" was introduced to the Standard country or area codes for statistical use (known as M49). These groupings were intended solely for statistical convenience at the time and did not express a judgement about any country' or area's stage of development. Over time the use of the distinction between "Developed regions" and "Developing regions", including in the flagship publications of the United Nations, has diminished. Since 2017, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) report and the statistical annex to the Secretary General's annual report on SDGs progress uses only geographic regions without referring to the two groupings of developed and developing regions. Therefore, following consultation with other international and supranational organizations active in official statistics, the "Developed regions" and "Developing regions" were removed from the "Other groupings" of the M49 in December 2021.
9. "Classification of developed and developing regions – historical and updated (.xlsx)". unstats.un.org. Retrieved 24 January 2023.
10. "Trade and Development Report 2023" (PDF). United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. pp. 8, 16, 20, 151.

References

• Jensen, O.M.; Parkin, D.M.; MacLennan, R.; Muir, C.S.; Skeet, R.G., eds. (1991), "Appendix 1. United Nations Standard Country Codes" (PDF), Cancer Registration: Principles and Methods, IARC Scientific Publication, no. 95, International Agency for Research on Cancer, pp. 208–211, retrieved June 9, 2024
• United Nations, Statistics Division (January 1970), United Nations Standard Country Code (PDF), Series M: Miscellaneous Statistical Papers, New York: United Nations, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.M/49
• United Nations, Statistical Office (August 1975), United Nations Standard Area or Country Code for Statistical Use (Rev. 1), Series M: Miscellaneous Statistical Papers, New York: United Nations, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.M/49/Rev.1
• United Nations, Statistics Office (June 1982), Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (Rev. 2), Series M: Miscellaneous Statistical Papers, New York: United Nations, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.M/49/Rev.2
• United Nations, Statistics Division (1996), Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use (Rev. 3), Series M: Miscellaneous Statistical Papers, New York: United Nations, ST/ESA/STAT/SER.M/49/Rev.3

External links

• Standard country or area codes for statistical use