FIPS 10-4
The FIPS 10-4 standard, Countries, Dependencies, Areas of Special Sovereignty, and Their Principal Administrative Divisions, was a list of two-letter country codes that were used by the U.S. Government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. The standard was also known as DAFIF 0413 ed 7 Amdt. No. 3 and as DIA 65-18.
The FIPS 10-4 codes are similar to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes. The standard also includes codes for the top-level subdivision of the countries, similar to but usually incompatible with the ISO 3166-2 standard.
On September 2, 2008, FIPS 10-4 was one of ten standards withdrawn by NIST as a Federal Information Processing Standard. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has discontinued maintenance of FIPS 10-4 as of 31 December 2014. The FIPS 10-4 codes have been replaced with a list called "Geopolitical Entities and Codes".
