Is there a one-to-one correspondence between ISO codes and real-world countries?
A. This is a much more complex question than it appears on the surface. It depends partly on whether you agree with the selection of countries on the ISO 3166-1 list, which may be controversial. Changes in the real world must be taken into account, too. Q. At any given time, are the countries on the ISO list exhaustive and exclusive? A. “Exhaustive” means that every location on earth is in some country on the list. “Exclusive” means that, except for locations right on the border, each location is in only one country. The ISO list is exhaustive, except that the high seas are not included. However, there are some areas whose sovereignty is in dispute, and the standard is usually noncommittal about those areas. Parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Western Sahara, and the Spratly and Paracel Islands in the South China Sea are among the territories at issue. Of these, Western Sahara is the only one with its own ISO country code; Morocco has controlled it for decades, but the U.N. still hopes to hold
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