ISOkoodit

ISOkoodit, or ISO-koodit in Finnish, refers to the standardized identifiers defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) used to uniquely identify entities such as countries, languages, currencies and other data elements. In Finnish publications the term ISOkoodit is commonly used to denote ISO codes in general or to refer to ISO 3166, ISO 639 and related standards. The ISO codes are designed to promote uniformity and interoperability across information systems.

The ISO coding system comprises several families. ISO 3166 handles country and subdivision codes (for example FI for Finland, US for the United States). ISO 639 covers languages (fi for Finnish, en for English). ISO 4217 defines currencies (EUR for euro, USD for United States dollar). Additional families include ISO 15924 for scripts and ISO 3166-2 for regional subdivisions, together supporting consistent data tagging and cataloging.

ISOkoodit are widely used in computing, travel and logistics, e-commerce, software localization, and data management. They enable consistent tagging of data fields, improved search and filtering, international shipping, and multilingual content delivery. In programming, locale settings, databases, and API payloads commonly rely on ISO codes to indicate language, region and currency.

The ISO is an international standardization body established in 1947. Its codes are maintained by technical committees and the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency for country codes. Updates are published as ISO standards and are widely adopted by governments, businesses, and international organizations. Adoption is voluntary and depends on regulatory or contractual contexts.