Kaksitunnus

Kaksitunnus is a Finnish term that translates to "two-character code" or "two-letter code." It most commonly refers to the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes. These are two-letter codes that represent countries and their dependent territories. For example, FI is the kaksitunnus for Finland, and US is the kaksitunnus for the United States.

These codes are widely used internationally for various purposes, including data representation, domain names on the internet (.fi, .us), and in shipping and trade documentation. The ISO 3166-1 standard is maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The alpha-2 codes are the most frequently used subset of the ISO 3166-1 standard, which also includes alpha-3 (three-letter) codes and numeric codes. The establishment of these standardized codes ensures a consistent and unambiguous way to identify countries globally, facilitating international communication and data exchange. While the primary association is with country codes, the general concept of "kaksitunnus" can theoretically apply to any two-character identification system.