pycountry 26.2.16

Data update policy

No changes to the data will be accepted into pycountry. This is a pure wrapper around the ISO standard using the pkg-isocodes database from Debian as is. If you need changes to the political situation in the world, please talk to the ISO or Debian people, not me.

Contributions

The code lives in a git repository on GitHub, and issues must be reported in there as well.

Countries (ISO 3166-1)

Countries are accessible through a database object that is already configured upon import of pycountry and works as an iterable:

>>> import pycountry
>>> len(pycountry.countries)
249
>>> list(pycountry.countries)[0]
Country(alpha_2='AW', alpha_3='ABW', flag='🇦🇼', name='Aruba', numeric='533')

Specific countries can be looked up by their various codes and provide the information included in the standard as attributes:

>>> germany = pycountry.countries.get(alpha_2='DE')
>>> germany
Country(alpha_2='DE', alpha_3='DEU', flag='🇩🇪', name='Germany', numeric='276', official_name='Federal Republic of Germany')
>>> germany.alpha_2
'DE'
>>> germany.alpha_3
'DEU'
>>> germany.numeric
'276'
>>> germany.name
'Germany'
>>> germany.official_name
'Federal Republic of Germany'

There’s also a “fuzzy” search to help people discover “proper” countries for names that might only actually be subdivisions. The fuzziness also includes normalizing unicode accents. There’s also a bit of prioritization included to prefer matches on country names before subdivision names and have countries with more matches be listed before ones with fewer matches:

>>> pycountry.countries.search_fuzzy('England')
[Country(alpha_2='GB', alpha_3='GBR', flag='🇬🇧', name='United Kingdom', numeric='826', official_name='United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland')]

>>> pycountry.countries.search_fuzzy('Cote')
[Country(alpha_2='CI', alpha_3='CIV', flag='🇨🇮', name="Côte d'Ivoire", numeric='384', official_name="Republic of Côte d'Ivoire"),
 Country(alpha_2='FR', alpha_3='FRA', flag='🇫🇷', name='France', numeric='250', official_name='French Republic'),
 Country(alpha_2='HN', alpha_3='HND', flag='🇭🇳', name='Honduras', numeric='340', official_name='Republic of Honduras')]

Attributes for the country class can be accessed using the __getattr__ method. If the requested attribute is a key for the country class, it will return the corresponding value. Here are some examples:

>>> aland = pycountry.countries.get(alpha_2='AX')
>>> print(aland)
Country(alpha_2='AX', alpha_3='ALA', flag='🇦🇽', name='Åland Islands', numeric='248')
>>> aland.common_name
Traceback (most recent call last):
AttributeError: common_name
>>> aland.flag
'🇦🇽'
>>> aland.foo
Traceback (most recent call last):
AttributeError: foo

Historic Countries (ISO 3166-3)

The historic_countries database contains former countries that have been removed from the standard and are now included in ISO 3166-3, excluding existing ones:

>>> ussr = pycountry.historic_countries.get(alpha_3='SUN')
>>> ussr
Country(alpha_2='SU', alpha_3='SUN', alpha_4='SUHH', name='USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics', numeric='810', withdrawal_date='1992-08-30')
>>> ussr.alpha_4
'SUHH'
>>> ussr.alpha_3
'SUN'
>>> ussr.name
'USSR, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics'
>>> ussr.withdrawal_date
'1992-08-30'

Country subdivisions (ISO 3166-2)

The country subdivisions are a little more complex than the countries itself because they provide a nested and typed structure.

All subdivisons can be accessed directly:

>>> len(pycountry.subdivisions)
5046
>>> list(pycountry.subdivisions)[0]
SubdivisionHierarchy(code='AD-02', country_code='AD', name='Canillo', parent_code=None, type='Parish')

Subdivisions can be accessed using their unique code. The resulting object will provide at least their code, name and type:

>>> de_st = pycountry.subdivisions.get(code='DE-ST')
>>> de_st.code
'DE-ST'
>>> de_st.name
'Sachsen-Anhalt'
>>> de_st.type
'Land'
>>> de_st.country
Country(alpha_2='DE', alpha_3='DEU', flag='🇩🇪', name='Germany', numeric='276', official_name='Federal Republic of Germany')

Some subdivisions specify another subdivision as a parent:

>>> fr_01 = pycountry.subdivisions.get(code='FR-01')
>>> fr_01.code
'FR-01'
>>> fr_01.name
'Ain'
>>> fr_01.type
'Metropolitan department'
>>> fr_01.parent_code
'FR-ARA'
>>> fr_01.parent
SubdivisionHierarchy(code='FR-ARA', country_code='FR', name='Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes', parent_code=None, type='Metropolitan region')
>>> fr_01.parent.name
'Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes'

The divisions of a single country can be queried using the country_code index:

>>> len(pycountry.subdivisions.get(country_code='DE'))
16

>>> len(pycountry.subdivisions.get(country_code='US'))
57

Similar to countries, the search_fuzzy method has been implemented for subdivisions to facilitate finding relevant subdivision entries. This method includes unicode normalization for accents and prioritizes matches on subdivision names. The search algorithm is designed to return more relevant matches first:

This method is especially useful for cases where the exact name or code of the subdivision is not known.

>>> pycountry.subdivisions.search_fuzzy('York')
[SubdivisionHierarchy(code='GB-YOR', country_code='GB', name='York', parent='GB-ENG', parent_code='GB-ENG', type='Unitary authority'),
 SubdivisionHierarchy(code='GB-ERY', country_code='GB', name='East Riding of Yorkshire', parent='GB-ENG', parent_code='GB-ENG', type='Unitary authority'),
 SubdivisionHierarchy(code='GB-NYK', country_code='GB', name='North Yorkshire', parent='GB-ENG', parent_code='GB-ENG', type='Two-tier county'),
 SubdivisionHierarchy(code='US-NY', country_code='US', name='New York', parent_code=None, type='State')]

Scripts (ISO 15924)

Scripts are available from a database similar to the countries:

>>> len(pycountry.scripts)
226
>>> list(pycountry.scripts)[0]
Script(alpha_4='Adlm', name='Adlam', numeric='166')
>>> latin = pycountry.scripts.get(name='Latin')
>>> latin
Script(alpha_4='Latn', name='Latin', numeric='215')
>>> latin.alpha_4
'Latn'
>>> latin.name
'Latin'
>>> latin.numeric
'215'

Currencies (ISO 4217)

The currencies database is, again, similar to the ones before:

>>> len(pycountry.currencies)
178
>>> list(pycountry.currencies)[0]
Currency(alpha_3='AED', name='UAE Dirham', numeric='784')
>>> argentine_peso = pycountry.currencies.get(alpha_3='ARS')
>>> argentine_peso
Currency(alpha_3='ARS', name='Argentine Peso', numeric='032')
>>> argentine_peso.alpha_3
'ARS'
>>> argentine_peso.name
'Argentine Peso'
>>> argentine_peso.numeric
'032'

Languages (ISO 639-3)

The languages database is similar too:

>>> len(pycountry.languages)
7923
>>> list(pycountry.languages)[0]
Language(alpha_3='aaa', name='Ghotuo', scope='I', type='L')

>>> aragonese = pycountry.languages.get(alpha_2='an')
>>> aragonese.alpha_2
'an'
>>> aragonese.alpha_3
'arg'
>>> aragonese.name
'Aragonese'

>>> bengali = pycountry.languages.get(alpha_2='bn')
>>> bengali.name
'Bengali'
>>> bengali.common_name
'Bangla'

Locales

Locales are available in the pycountry.LOCALES_DIR subdirectory of this package. The translation domains are called isoXXX according to the standard they provide translations for. The directory is structured in a way compatible to Python’s gettext module.

Here is an example translating language names:

>>> import gettext
>>> german = gettext.translation('iso3166-1', pycountry.LOCALES_DIR,
...                              languages=['de'])
>>> german.install()
>>> _('Germany')
'Deutschland'

Lookups

For each database (countries, languages, scripts, etc.), you can also look up entities case insensitively without knowing which key the value may match. For example:

>>> pycountry.countries.lookup('de')
Country(alpha_2='DE', alpha_3='DEU', flag='🇩🇪', name='Germany', numeric='276', official_name='Federal Republic of Germany')

The search ends with the first match, which is returned.

Dict Compatibility

You can cast each object type into a dict:

>>> country = pycountry.countries.lookup('de')
>>> dict(country)
{'alpha_2': 'DE', 'alpha_3': 'DEU', 'flag': '🇩🇪', 'name': 'Germany', 'numeric': '276', 'official_name': 'Federal Republic of Germany'}

Custom Countries

While pycountry will not be adding non-ISO values to its standard library, you can add or remove entries at runtime to fit your needs.

Add a non-ISO country:

>>> pycountry.countries.add_entry(alpha_2="XK", alpha_3="XXK", name="Kosovo", numeric="926")

Remove a country from a database:

>>> pycountry.countries.remove_entry(alpha_2="XK")