World countries  

available in multiple languages, in SQL, CSV, JSON and PHP formats, with associated codes as defined by the ISO 3166 standard, and with national flags included

Constantly updated lists of world countries, territories and areas of geographical interest, with associated alpha-2, alpha-3 and numeric codes as defined by the ISO 3166-1 standard, published and maintained by the International Organization for Standardization, available in SQL, CSV, JSON and PHP formats, in multiple languages and with national flags included.

In the language folders you will find files named in two different ways. Here's what you will find in each of them:

File names	Content
world.*	Files named like this contain all the 249 countries, territories, and areas of geographical interest that have an officially assigned ISO 3166-1 code.
countries.*	Files named like this contain 195 entries made up from the 193 sovereign states (commonly referred to as countries) that are members of the United Nations (UN) plus the 2 observer states of Palestine and the Vatican City State.

Note that there are 206 sovereign states in the world, the 11 states that are missing from the countries list being the ones having their sovereignty disputed. See the list of sovereign states with information on their status and recognition of their sovereignty.

The files contain:

• the ISO 3166-1 numeric country codes
• the ISO 3166 official short names in English¹
• the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 two-letter country codes
• the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 three-letter country codes

¹ for other languages the country names are in that particular language

The lists are currently available in 23 languages:

• Arabic
• Chinese
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Estonian
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Lithuanian
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
• Slovak
• Spanish
• Thai
• Ukrainian

Data formats

SQL

Excerpt from the data/en/countries.sql file:

...
(250,'France','fr','fra'),
(266,'Gabon','ga','gab'),
(270,'Gambia','gm','gmb'),
(268,'Georgia','ge','geo'),
(276,'Germany','de','deu'),
(288,'Ghana','gh','gha'),
(300,'Greece','gr','grc'),
(308,'Grenada','gd','grd'),
...

CSV

Excerpt from the data/en/countries.csv file:

...
250,France,fr,fra
266,Gabon,ga,gab
270,Gambia,gm,gmb
268,Georgia,ge,geo
276,Germany,de,deu
288,Ghana,gh,gha
300,Greece,gr,grc
308,Grenada,gd,grd
...

JSON

Excerpt from the data/en/countries.json file:

...
{"id":250,"name":"France","alpha2":"fr","alpha3":"fra"},
{"id":266,"name":"Gabon","alpha2":"ga","alpha3":"gab"},
{"id":270,"name":"Gambia","alpha2":"gm","alpha3":"gmb"},
{"id":268,"name":"Georgia","alpha2":"ge","alpha3":"geo"},
{"id":276,"name":"Germany","alpha2":"de","alpha3":"deu"},
{"id":288,"name":"Ghana","alpha2":"gh","alpha3":"gha"},
{"id":300,"name":"Greece","alpha2":"gr","alpha3":"grc"},
{"id":308,"name":"Grenada","alpha2":"gd","alpha3":"grd"},
...

Here's a little helper function for searching for a specific country's data

The helper function assumes that the JSON with the countries data is associated with a variable named countries which is in the same scope as the function

//  returns an object with the sought country's data if the search yields a result
//  returns undefined if no results could be found or if argument is incorrect
function search_country(query) {

    // if argument is not valid return false
    if (undefined === query.id && undefined === query.alpha2 && undefined === query.alpha3) return undefined;

    // iterate over the array of countries
	return countries.filter(function(country) {

        // return country's data if
        return (
            // we are searching by ID and we have a match
            (undefined !== query.id && parseInt(country.id, 10) === parseInt(query.id, 10))
            // or we are searching by alpha2 and we have a match
            || (undefined !== query.alpha2 && country.alpha2 === query.alpha2.toLowerCase())
            // or we are searching by alpha3 and we have a match
            || (undefined !== query.alpha3 && country.alpha3 === query.alpha3.toLowerCase())
        )

    // since "filter" returns an array we use pop to get just the data object
    }).pop()

}

Usage

search_county({id: 250})
search_county({alpha2: 'fr'})
search_county({alpha3: 'fra'})

PHP

Excerpt from the data/en/countries.php file:

...
    array(
        'id'        => 250,
        'name'      => 'France',
        'alpha2'    => 'fr',
        'alpha3'    => 'fra'
    ),
    array(
        'id'        => 266,
        'name'      => 'Gabon',
        'alpha2'    => 'ga',
        'alpha3'    => 'gab'
    ),
    array(
        'id'        => 270,
        'name'      => 'Gambia',
        'alpha2'    => 'gm',
        'alpha3'    => 'gmb'
    ),
...

Here's a little helper function for searching for a specific country's data

//  this function assumes that you have done this:
require 'path/to/countries.php';

//  returns an array with the sought country's data if the search yields a result
//  returns false if no results could be found or if argument is incorrect
function search_country($query) {

    // make the countries available in the function
    global $countries;

    // if argument is not valid return false
    if (!isset($query['id']) && !isset($query['alpha2']) && !isset($query['alpha3'])) return false;

    // iterate over the array of countries
	$result = array_filter($countries, function($country) use ($query) {

        // return country's data if
        return (
            // we are searching by ID and we have a match
            (isset($query['id']) && $country['id'] == $query['id'])
            // or we are searching by alpha2 and we have a match
            || (isset($query['alpha2']) && $country['alpha2'] == strtolower($query['alpha2']))
            // or we are searching by alpha3 and we have a match
            || (isset($query['alpha3']) && $country['alpha3'] == strtolower($query['alpha3']))
        );

    });

    // since "array_filter" returns an array we use pop to get just the data object
    // we return false if a result was not found
    return empty($result) ? false : array_pop($result);

}

Usage

search_county(array('id' => 250});
search_county(array('alpha2' => 'fr'});
search_county(array('alpha3' => 'fra'});

Flags

The package also contains the national flags of each country as a 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, 64x64 and 128x128 PNG images, courtesy of IconDrawer. The image files are named using the ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 code of the country they represent, for easily pairing flags with countries.

Customize your build

You probably don't want to download the lists in all languages so go ahead and download your customized build.

Data sources

Country names in all languages are taken from Wikipedia.

Support the development of this project

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