ISO 3166-2:US
entry for the United States in ISO 3166-2
ISO 3166-2:US is the entry for the United States 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 subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.
Currently for the United States, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for the following subdivisions:
50 states
one district (i.e., the District of Columbia, the capital of the country, also known as Washington, D.C.)
six insular areas (including the U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, a collection of nine islands or groups of islands). (The subdivision category name used to refer to the grouping of insular areas is "outlying area" per the standard, but these locales are not "outlying" from a local perspective.)
Each code consists of two parts separated by a hyphen. The first part is US, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of the United States. The second part is two letters, which is the postal abbreviation of the state, district, or outlying area, except the United States Minor Outlying Islands which do not have a postal abbreviation.
Current codes
Subdivision names are listed as in the ISO 3166-2 standard published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA).
Subdivisions included in ISO 3166-1
Besides being included as subdivisions of the United States in ISO 3166-2, the outlying areas are also officially assigned their own country codes in ISO 3166-1.
“ISO 3166-2:US” enters the record as entry for the United States in ISO 3166-2. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what 3166-2, entry and United can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“ISO 3166-2:US” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, 3166-2, entry and United provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28056. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “ISO 3166-2:US”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow ISO 3166-2:US primary sources, ISO 3166-2:US archive and 3166-2 research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “ISO 3166-2:US”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “ISO 3166-2:US” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.