regionkoder

Regionkoder are standardized identifiers used to name and distinguish geographic regions within a country, state, or organizational system. They enable consistent data collection, reporting, and management across applications such as statistics, taxation, logistics, and public administration.

A regionkode is typically an alphanumeric string that encodes geographic hierarchy. Codes may be fixed-length and may incorporate separators to indicate country, subregion, or locality. The goal is to provide a unique, machine-readable handle that maps to a place name for both humans and software.

In international practice, several standards and frameworks provide region codes. ISO 3166-2 defines codes for principal subdivisions of countries, while the NUTS framework is used for statistical regions in the European Union. Other systems include UN M.49 and various national schemes, each serving different geographic granularity and administrative purposes.

Regionkoder are used to aggregate data, route services, and apply policies by region. They appear in government datasets, health records, taxation systems, logistics software, and market research. Maintaining stable codes is important to preserve historical comparability and to avoid confusion when regions are reorganized.

Maintenance is usually handled by official authorities or statistical agencies, with formal update procedures. Changes in boundaries or administrative structures require code revisions and mappings from old to new codes, along with clear documentation and versioning to prevent data incompatibilities.

See also: ISO 3166-2, NUTS, UN M.49, postal codes, and administrative divisions.