In the ISO, UA is also Ukraine. UK is reserved because it would cause confusion with the United Kingdom, which has the code “GB”… Even though “UK” would make more sense as GB on the surface seems to exclude Northern Ireland as well as a bunch of outlying islands. Apparently they didn’t like the use of “United” and “Kingdom” as they are two standard nouns. Then they proceeded to give the USA “US” so… Yeah, it’s stupid.
As far as I understand it, the US invented the internet (possibly through the divine inspiration of Vice President Al Gore), so it makes sense that they can make or break any rules they want.
At least it makes some sense, as they are mostly based on ISO 3166, as well as:
the international vehicle code for South Africa has been “ZA” since 1936. ZAR serves as the ISO 4217 currency code for the South African rand. South African aircraft registration prefixes also start with Z.
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In the ISO, UA is also Ukraine. UK is reserved because it would cause confusion with the United Kingdom, which has the code “GB”… Even though “UK” would make more sense as GB on the surface seems to exclude Northern Ireland as well as a bunch of outlying islands. Apparently they didn’t like the use of “United” and “Kingdom” as they are two standard nouns. Then they proceeded to give the USA “US” so… Yeah, it’s stupid.
As far as I understand it, the US invented the internet (possibly through the divine inspiration of Vice President Al Gore), so it makes sense that they can make or break any rules they want.
Talking about the ISO. Not the internet.
Some other Central and Eastern European ones are weird as well.
South Africa is .za from Zuid-Africa, the dutch term for the country
At least it makes some sense, as they are mostly based on ISO 3166, as well as:
SA is the country code for Saudi Arabia.
Yeah, but the US is all about its exceptionalism, so it gets to be the exception.