United Nations Statistics Division
Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49)
The United Nations standard list of countries and areas for statistics: three-digit M49 codes with ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes, grouped into regions, sub-regions and intermediate regions (for example Africa > Sub-Saharan Africa > Eastern Africa), with flags for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States. Used only as a join key and for "compare with your region" groupings; M49 regions differ from World Bank regions.
Numbers published from it
None yet: this source is registered and its licence checked, and its numbers are being prepared.
Licence and credit
- What the terms say
“The United Nations grants permission to Users to visit the Site and to download and copy the information, documents and materials (collectively, “Materials”) from the Site for the User’s personal, non-commercial use, without any right to resell or redistribute them or to compile or create derivative works therefrom”
From the producer's terms, checked 2026-10-04; re-checked automatically every week.
- Credit we give
- Country and area codes and regions: United Nations Statistics Division, Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49), https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/.
- Copy of the raw file
- Not allowed: we keep a private copy for our own checks and publish its fingerprint.
- Cite as
- United Nations Statistics Division. Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49). https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/overview/ (accessed {date_accessed}).
Files
The M49 overview page with the full table. The English table (id downloadTableEN, 248 countries and areas) has global, region, sub-region and intermediate-region codes and names, country or area, M49 code, ISO-alpha2 and ISO-alpha3 codes, and LDC, LLDC and SIDS flags. About 1.7 MB.
https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/overview/
Status
- Programme
- Maintained by UNSD and changed when countries or areas change (no version date on the page). A UN product, not a US federal programme.
- Updates
- Ad hoc (when countries or areas change)
- Last check
- Unchanged since the last fetch (2026-10-05T11:04:45Z)