Country, Language and Currency Codes (ISO3166, ISO639 and ISO4217)

With this article I wanted to clarify how countries, languages and currency designations should actually be abbreviated correctly. This is especially important when working on international projects or with software components that adhere to these standards. For example, what do you think is the abbreviated 3-character code for the Latvian language: LAT or LAV? It turns out it's LAV, because LAT is the abbreviation for Latin :)

Country codes

Countries are conventionally abbreviated using a 2-character code. The ISO 3166 standard is used. Latvia's code is LV, while, for example, Antarctica - which is not quite a country but rather a sparsely inhabited patch at the south pole - has been assigned the code AQ.
http://www.iso.org/iso/english_country_names_and_code_elements

Language codes

Languages are a little more complicated, as they are covered by the ISO-639 group of standards - specifically ISO639-1, ISO639-2 and ISO639-3. Furthermore, the ISO639-2 standard has both a bibliographic code (B) and a terminology code (T).

Essentially these standards can be regarded as 2-character (ISO639-1) and 3-character (ISO-639-2 and ISO639-3) codes.

For the Latvian language, the 2-character language code is LV, while the 3-character code is LAV. There are languages for which different 3-character codes have been assigned in different standards. For example, the 2-character code for German is DE (not GE, as one might assume), while the 3-character code can be either DEU or GER, depending on the standard.

While researching language codes, I discovered to my surprise that there is an Apache language, spoken in a small region in the south of America. Since the Latgalian language is not recognised as a language but rather as a dialect, it has not been assigned a language code.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639-1_codes

Currency codes

Currency codes are governed by the ISO 4217 standard. A currency code can have a 3-character code and a numeric code. Accordingly, the Latvian lats has the code LVL and the numeric code 428. Strangely, this differs from the telephone code (371), which presumably has some background and explanation.

A curious discovery when researching currency codes - a currency code has also been assigned to gold (XAU, 959), silver and others. There is also a code for a "theoretical" currency intended for use in testing (XTS, 963).
http://www.iso.org/iso/support/faqs/faqs_widely_used_standards/widely_used_standards_other/currency_codes/currency_codes_list-1.htm

Use of the currency abbreviation Ls

The abbreviation Ls may be used, but its use is governed not by international standards but by Latvian language orthography (Apinis M., Koluža R. Latviešu valodas pareizrakstība, R.: Zvaigzne ABC, 1995)

Domain country codes (top level domain)

In top-level domain names, country codes are based on the ISO 3166 standard, albeit with a few exceptions and additions. Latvia's is .LV.
The land of penguins - Antarctica - also got its own TLD code: .AQ :)