Convert country codes

Question

There are several methods on country codes.

I have a list of codes with 3-characters, like on this page:

http://www.fina.org/H2O/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=93:asia&Itemid=638&layout=default

Is there a simple way to convert them to 2-characters? Like "PT" from "POR" for Portugal.

Standard for 2-characters - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2

Thanks.

Solution 1

There is going to be no easy way because there is no particular scheme in the names of the country. For example PT from POR for Portugal and this can be different for other countries as well. You might want to create an array to hold two letters for each country.

Example:

$countries = array('PT' => 'Portugal', 'UK' => 'United Kingdom');

Solution 2

There are some useful data files that you can get from http://country.io/data that'll help you:

• http://country.io/iso3.json - a map of ISO2 to ISO3 country codes
• http://country.io/names.json - a map of ISO2 country codes to country names

If you just want to go from 3 letter codes to 2 letter codes you can just flip the first map and use that. You could create a map that goes directly from 3 letter codes to country names by combing the files though. Here's a simple PHP example:

$codes = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://country.io/iso3.json'), true);
$names = json_decode(file_get_contents('http://country.io/names.json'), true);
$iso3_to_name = array();
foreach($codes as $iso2 => $iso3) {
    $iso3_to_name[$iso3] = $names[$iso2];
}

echo $names("PL"); // => "Poland"
echo $iso3_to_map("POL"); // => "Poland"

Solution 3

I see that the question was asked seven years ago. Today I had the similar issue and found one good solution. Hope that this answer will be helpful to others who will have the same issue in the future.

There is a separate library which can be used https://github.com/thephpleague/iso3166

Then the solution would be straightforward. $alpha3 is the three char representation of a country. And alpha2 is two char representation of the country.

1. $ composer require league/iso3166
2. $data = (new League\ISO3166\ISO3166)->alpha3($alpha3);

3. Data looks as follows:

   [
     'name' => 'Netherlands',
     'alpha2' => 'NL',
     'alpha3' => 'NLD',
     'numeric' => '528',
     'currency' => [
       'EUR',
       ]
   ]
   

4. $countryCodeInTwoChar = $data['alpha2']

Solution 4

Without doing an actual lookup, there is no simple way: AFG (Afghanistan) becomes AF, while AND (Andorra) becomes AD, and BLR (Belarus) becomes BY... so you can't do any simple character manipulation to convert.

My suggestion would be to use a countrycode table, or add an extra column to any existing table, so that you hold both codes.

Solution 5

Building on the other info here, here's a complete function ready to go:

function convertCountryAlphas3To2($code='') {
 $countries = json_decode('{"AFG":"AF","ALA":"AX","ALB":"AL","DZA":"DZ","ASM":"AS","AND":"AD","AGO":"AO","AIA":"AI","ATA":"AQ","ATG":"AG","ARG":"AR","ARM":"AM","ABW":"AW","AUS":"AU","AUT":"AT","AZE":"AZ","BHS":"BS","BHR":"BH","BGD":"BD","BRB":"BB","BLR":"BY","BEL":"BE","BLZ":"BZ","BEN":"BJ","BMU":"BM","BTN":"BT","BOL":"BO","BIH":"BA","BWA":"BW","BVT":"BV","BRA":"BR","VGB":"VG","IOT":"IO","BRN":"BN","BGR":"BG","BFA":"BF","BDI":"BI","KHM":"KH","CMR":"CM","CAN":"CA","CPV":"CV","CYM":"KY","CAF":"CF","TCD":"TD","CHL":"CL","CHN":"CN","HKG":"HK","MAC":"MO","CXR":"CX","CCK":"CC","COL":"CO","COM":"KM","COG":"CG","COD":"CD","COK":"CK","CRI":"CR","CIV":"CI","HRV":"HR","CUB":"CU","CYP":"CY","CZE":"CZ","DNK":"DK","DKK":"DK","DJI":"DJ","DMA":"DM","DOM":"DO","ECU":"EC","Sal":"El","GNQ":"GQ","ERI":"ER","EST":"EE","ETH":"ET","FLK":"FK","FRO":"FO","FJI":"FJ","FIN":"FI","FRA":"FR","GUF":"GF","PYF":"PF","ATF":"TF","GAB":"GA","GMB":"GM","GEO":"GE","DEU":"DE","GHA":"GH","GIB":"GI","GRC":"GR","GRL":"GL","GRD":"GD","GLP":"GP","GUM":"GU","GTM":"GT","GGY":"GG","GIN":"GN","GNB":"GW","GUY":"GY","HTI":"HT","HMD":"HM","VAT":"VA","HND":"HN","HUN":"HU","ISL":"IS","IND":"IN","IDN":"ID","IRN":"IR","IRQ":"IQ","IRL":"IE","IMN":"IM","ISR":"IL","ITA":"IT","JAM":"JM","JPN":"JP","JEY":"JE","JOR":"JO","KAZ":"KZ","KEN":"KE","KIR":"KI","PRK":"KP","KOR":"KR","KWT":"KW","KGZ":"KG","LAO":"LA","LVA":"LV","LBN":"LB","LSO":"LS","LBR":"LR","LBY":"LY","LIE":"LI","LTU":"LT","LUX":"LU","MKD":"MK","MDG":"MG","MWI":"MW","MYS":"MY","MDV":"MV","MLI":"ML","MLT":"MT","MHL":"MH","MTQ":"MQ","MRT":"MR","MUS":"MU","MYT":"YT","MEX":"MX","FSM":"FM","MDA":"MD","MCO":"MC","MNG":"MN","MNE":"ME","MSR":"MS","MAR":"MA","MOZ":"MZ","MMR":"MM","NAM":"NA","NRU":"NR","NPL":"NP","NLD":"NL","ANT":"AN","NCL":"NC","NZL":"NZ","NIC":"NI","NER":"NE","NGA":"NG","NIU":"NU","NFK":"NF","MNP":"MP","NOR":"NO","OMN":"OM","PAK":"PK","PLW":"PW","PSE":"PS","PAN":"PA","PNG":"PG","PRY":"PY","PER":"PE","PHL":"PH","PCN":"PN","POL":"PL","PRT":"PT","PRI":"PR","QAT":"QA","REU":"RE","ROU":"RO","RUS":"RU","RWA":"RW","BLM":"BL","SHN":"SH","KNA":"KN","LCA":"LC","MAF":"MF","SPM":"PM","VCT":"VC","WSM":"WS","SMR":"SM","STP":"ST","SAU":"SA","SEN":"SN","SRB":"RS","SYC":"SC","SLE":"SL","SGP":"SG","SVK":"SK","SVN":"SI","SLB":"SB","SOM":"SO","ZAF":"ZA","SGS":"GS","SSD":"SS","ESP":"ES","LKA":"LK","SDN":"SD","SUR":"SR","SJM":"SJ","SWZ":"SZ","SWE":"SE","CHE":"CH","SYR":"SY","TWN":"TW","TJK":"TJ","TZA":"TZ","THA":"TH","TLS":"TL","TGO":"TG","TKL":"TK","TON":"TO","TTO":"TT","TUN":"TN","TUR":"TR","TKM":"TM","TCA":"TC","TUV":"TV","UGA":"UG","UKR":"UA","ARE":"AE","GBR":"GB","USA":"US","UMI":"UM","URY":"UY","UZB":"UZ","VUT":"VU","VEN":"VE","VNM":"VN","VIR":"VI","WLF":"WF","ESH":"EH","YEM":"YE","ZMB":"ZM","ZWE":"ZW","GBP":"GB","RUB":"RU","NOK":"NO"}',true);
 $out = $countries[$code];
 return $out;
}

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Comments

[Artefacto]

Good question, but I think you'll have to write one yourself or use some webservice.

[Im0rtality]

From what I understood Ignatz needs to convert 'POR' to 'PT', not IP to location

[CoderHawk]

@Im0rtality - yes I know, what if he get PT - PORTUGAL mapping database or list, rather than converting it? thats why I recommended posting this question in GIS.

[CoderHawk]

correct, thats why I recommend posting this question in gis.stackexchange.com

[Tom Gullen]

Adding an extra column is definatly the best approach

[cn007b]

Call to undefined function json_deocde()

[Ben Dowling]

Sorry, fixed the typo. Should have been json_decode()

[Oleksandr IY]

this one should be answer

[Adam]

Do you also know of a list which provides 'ISO2 country codes to country names' in different languages? Like frensh, german, spanish, etc?

[Tony Paternite]

I actually found this really helpful. Thanks.