The part of ISO 3166-2 that applies to Germany provides codes for the names of the 16 federal states of Germany (Bundesländer).
Note: These ISO geocodes might be trademarked.[citation needed]
The first part is the ISO 3166-1 code DE for Germany (Deutschland); the second part is two-digit-alphabetic.
| Code | State (English) | State (German) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
DE-BE |
Berlin | city-state | |
DE-BR |
Brandenburg | ||
DE-BW |
Baden-Württemberg | ||
DE-BY |
Bayern | Free State | |
DE-HB |
Bremen (Hansestadt Bremen) | Hanseatic City, two-city-state | |
DE-HE |
Hessen | ||
DE-HH |
Hamburg (Hansestadt Hamburg) | Hanseatic City, city-state | |
DE-MV |
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | ||
DE-NI |
Niedersachsen | ||
DE-NW |
Nordrhein-Westfalen | ||
DE-RP |
Rheinland-Pfalz | ||
DE-SH |
Schleswig-Holstein | ||
DE-SL |
Saarland | ||
DE-SN |
Sachsen | Free State | |
DE-ST |
Sachsen-Anhalt | ||
DE-TH |
Thüringen | Free State |
The codes for Bremen and Hamburg incorporate an "H" for Hansestadt as their first letter. The codes for Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt avoid the more intuitive but historically tainted NS (for Nationalsozialismus) and SA (for Sturmabteilung).[citation needed]
Deviant codes or abbreviations have been used traditionally especially for the (western) compound-named states and they remain in common use today. They often have three letters instead of two.
B |
Berlin |
BB |
Brandenburg (and failed proposal Berlin-Brandenburg) |
MVP |
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania |
NDS |
Lower Saxony |
NRW |
North Rhine-Westphalia |
RLP |
Rhineland-Palatinate |
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