FPS Economy, S.M.E., self-employed and Energy
Geobel
Country nomenclature
The fourth edition of the Country nomenclature GEOBEL has been enlarged with the main currencies (ISO 4217), capitals and official languages. ISO-code XAF stands for the CFA franc of Central African countries and XOF for the CFA franc of West African countries.
On the following pages the reader will find the list of countries that have been recognized from 1990 until 2011 (page 3). This list, as well as the following index (page 17) is available in the three national languages of Belgium and in English.
The countries or regions are represented by a double code system: an alphabetical 2-letter code that corresponds with the ISO-3166 norm and a numeric code that is common for Statistics Belgium and the National Register. Each of the few alphabetical codes that do not correspond to the ISO norm begins with the letter X. The first letter of the numeric codes fixes the continent: 1 for Europe, 2 for Asia, 3 for Africa, 4 and 5 for America, 6 for Oceania and finally 7 and 9 for “Other”. The character preceding the text about the country refers to the appropriate map. Country codes that are no longer up to date are between brackets.
For each continent the list of countries is given in alphabetical order. Observations indicate the principal territories where countries exercise sovereignty, explain the ins and outs of recent changes, give some ancient denominations and specify the citizenship in case it differs from the country.
In order not to overload the index the citizenship only refers to the most recent situation. The reader who wants to retrace a past situation will find all necessary elements through the observations on the countries. In the index, countries are distinguished from regions by bold characters.
The ISO code SS and the numerical code 365 have been assigned to South Sudan. Although the sovereignty of the country has only just been declared, it has already been recognised by the UNO. The Netherlands Antilles were divided into Sint-Maarten (SX), Bonaire (BQ) and Curaçao (CW). However, they remain under Dutch sovereignty.