We deal with about 5 distinct lists of coutries at my job: One is the ISO standard. This is the one that gives websites endings like .uk or .il or .ch. This is important for address and airport information. One is our internal "pseudocountry" system - our office in French-speaking Belgium and Flemish-speaking Belgium act as though they are two completely separate countries. Same with German- and French-speaking Switzerland. We also, at one point, had a program in Czechoslovakia, so now that's two ISO contries. Three of them have to do with one government agency that initiates the visa process for J and F visas: birth country, citizenship country, passport-issuing country. The lists overlap a lot but are not true sub- or super-sets of each other. For example, you could have been born in Serbia before 2001 (SR), be a citizen of Serbia (RB), and have your passport from Serbia and Montenegro (YI). Note that neither SR nor YI are valid citizenship countries, and RB is not a valid passport-issuing country. And if you were born in Serbia after 2001, you must have been born in Serbia after 2001, you were either born in Serbia and Montenegro (YI) or Serbia (RB).
Meanwhile, years ago, we decided it would be good to only have two country lists.... so I've spent hours weaseling Serbia into this process.
We had this exact same problem at my work! Well, not the one with Serbia and passports, but just with lists of countries.
One problem is which standard do you use? I can't remember all of the standard names, but I know there are some country lists with two-letter codes and some with three. Another is what you consider a country. I found in order to create a threshold that allowed for Hong Kong, you'd pretty much have to include the West Bank too (not that I have a huge issue with that, but it could lead to confusion about the politics of a governmental agency).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 04:17 pm (UTC)One is the ISO standard. This is the one that gives websites endings like .uk or .il or .ch. This is important for address and airport information.
One is our internal "pseudocountry" system - our office in French-speaking Belgium and Flemish-speaking Belgium act as though they are two completely separate countries. Same with German- and French-speaking Switzerland. We also, at one point, had a program in Czechoslovakia, so now that's two ISO contries.
Three of them have to do with one government agency that initiates the visa process for J and F visas: birth country, citizenship country, passport-issuing country. The lists overlap a lot but are not true sub- or super-sets of each other. For example, you could have been born in Serbia before 2001 (SR), be a citizen of Serbia (RB), and have your passport from Serbia and Montenegro (YI). Note that neither SR nor YI are valid citizenship countries, and RB is not a valid passport-issuing country. And if you were born in Serbia after 2001, you must have been born in Serbia after 2001, you were either born in Serbia and Montenegro (YI) or Serbia (RB).
Meanwhile, years ago, we decided it would be good to only have two country lists.... so I've spent hours weaseling Serbia into this process.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-21 06:09 pm (UTC)One problem is which standard do you use? I can't remember all of the standard names, but I know there are some country lists with two-letter codes and some with three. Another is what you consider a country. I found in order to create a threshold that allowed for Hong Kong, you'd pretty much have to include the West Bank too (not that I have a huge issue with that, but it could lead to confusion about the politics of a governmental agency).