ISO 3166-2:KP

ISO 3166-2:KP is the entry for North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) in ISO 3166-2, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which defines codes for the names of the principal subdivisions (e.g., provinces or states) of all countries coded in ISO 3166-1.

Currently for North Korea, ISO 3166-2 codes are defined for two metropolitan cities, one capital city, one special city, and nine provinces. All of them except the metropolitan city are province-level subdivisions. The three special administrative regions, i.e. the Kaesong Industrial Region, the Mount Kumgang Tourist Region, and the Sinuiju Special Administrative Region, are not listed.

Each code consists of two parts, separated by a hyphen. The first part is KP, the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 code of North Korea. The second part is two digits:

  • 01: capital city
  • 02–10: provinces
  • 13: special city
  • 14–15: metropolitan cities

Current codes

Subdivision names are listed as in the ISO 3166-2 standard published by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA).

Click on the button in the header to sort each column.

Code Subdivision
name (ko) (McCune-Reischauer 1939) 		Subdivision
name (ko) (KPS 11080:2002) 		Subdivision name (ko) [note 1] Subdivision name (en)
[note 2] 		Subdivision category
KP-04 Chagang-do Jakangto 자강도 Chagang province
KP-09 Hamgyǒng-bukto Hamkyeongpukto 함경북도 North Hamgyong province
KP-08 Hamgyǒng-namdo Hamkyeongnamto 함경남도 South Hamgyong province
KP-06 Hwanghae-bukto Hwanghaipukto 황해북도 North Hwanghae province
KP-05 Hwanghae-namdo Hwanghainamto 황해남도 South Hwanghae province
KP-15 Kaesŏng Kaeseong 개성시 Kaesong metropolitan city
KP-07 Kangwǒn-do Kangweonto 강원도 Kangwon province
KP-14 Namp’o Nampho 남포시 Nampo metropolitan city
KP-03 P'yǒngan-bukto Phyeonganpukto 평안북도 North Pyongan province
KP-02 P'yǒngan-namdo Phyeongannamto 평안남도 South Pyongan province
KP-01 P'yǒngyang Phyeongyang 평양시 Pyongyang capital city
KP-13 Rasǒn
(Local variant: Najin Sǒnbong) 		Raseon 라선시 Rason special city
KP-10 Ryanggang-do Ryangkangto 량강도 Ryanggang province
Notes
  1. ^ For reference only, Korean name in Korean script not included in the ISO 3166-2 standard.
  2. ^ For reference only, English name not included in the ISO 3166-2 standard.

Changes

The following changes to the entry are listed on ISO's online catalogue, the Online Browsing Platform:

Effective date of change Short description of change (en)
2017-11-23 Change of spelling of KP-10, KP-13 (McCune-Reischauer, 1939); addition of metropolitan city KP-14; update List Source.
2014-12-18 Deletion of the space between "de" and the parenthesis in the short French name lower case.
2010-02-19 Administrative update, replacement of alphabetical characters with numeric characters in second code element
2022-11-29 Addition of metropolitan city KP-15; Update List Source

The following changes to the entry have been announced in newsletters by the ISO 3166/MA since the first publication of ISO 3166-2 in 1998. ISO stopped issuing newsletters in 2013.

Newsletter Date issued Description of change in newsletter Code/Subdivision change
Newsletter I-4 2002-12-10 Addition of one special city. Subdivision categories in header re-sorted Subdivisions added:
KP-NAJ Najin Sonbong-si
Newsletter I-6 2004-03-08 Spelling correction in header of list source
Newsletter II-1 2010-02-03
(corrected
2010-02-19) 		Administrative update, replacement of alphabetical characters with numeric characters in second code element Subdivisions deleted:
KP-KAE Kaesong-si
KP-NAM Nampo-si
Codes:
format changed (see below)

Codes changed in Newsletter II-1

Before After Subdivision name
KP-CHA KP-04 Chagang-do
KP-HAB KP-09 Hamgyongbuk-do
KP-HAN KP-08 Hamgyongnam-do
KP-HWB KP-06 Hwanghaebuk-do
KP-HWN KP-05 Hwanghaenam-do
KP-KAN KP-07 Kangwon-do
KP-PYB KP-03 Pyonganbuk-do
KP-PYN KP-02 Pyongannam-do
KP-YAN KP-10 Yanggang-do
KP-NAJ KP-13 Najin Sonbong-si
KP-PYO KP-01 Pyongyang-si

See also