ISO 3166-2:FR

ISO 3166-2:FR is the entry for France in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.

Currently for France, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for the following subdivisions:

Each code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is FR, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of France. The second part is either of the following:

  • one digit followed by two letters: European collectivity
  • two digits: metropolitan departments
  • two digits followed by a letter: metropolitan collectivities with special status
  • two letters: overseas collectivities, overseas collectivity with special status, overseas territory (matching their ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes)
  • three letters: metropolitan regions
  • three digits: overseas departmental collectivities, overseas unique territorial collectivities

The metropolitan departments use their INSEE codes, which are currently used in postal codes, and used in vehicle registration plates until 2009. INSEE codes are assigned as follows:

  • 0189 except 20: departments created before the 20th century, assigned in alphabetical order (prefixes in the form of "Bas-" and "Haute-" are ignored at the primary sort level), except Paris and Yvelines, which replaced the former departments Seine and Seine-et-Oise respectively after the reorganization of the Paris region in 1968;
  • 90: Territoire de Belfort, which was given department status in 1922;
  • 9195: departments created after the reorganization of the Paris region in 1968;
  • 2A and 2B: Corse-du-Sud and Haute-Corse, which were created after the division of Corsica in 1975, whose INSEE code was 20.