Why is South Africa's two-letter country code ZA?

[Schnitte]

@Martini_Enfield

What’s interesting is that, if you’re a military historian with an interest in the period, you might come across mentions of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR), sometimes known as “The Transvaal Republic”- one of the Boer Republics involved in the Boer War and later incorporated into the Cape Colonies after the war’s conclusion.

So as a Military Historian, “ZA” for “South Africa” makes sense, but since most people have better things to do than remember the names of short-lived 19th century republics, it does seem an odd choice for the most part.

Actually I read about the short-lived Boer republics recently and saw their flags on display at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, which seems to be an almost sacred place to Afrikanerdom…I guess Afrikaans spelling and grammar was not standardised for a long time so that for many years you couldn’t say definitely whether Boers were speaking Dutch or some other language, or whether they’d spell Suid with an S or a Z.

[Kenm]

How many deliveries end up in CA instead of CA?

[Canadjun]

@Chefguy

And I believe Switzerland used to be CH (Canton Helvetica?).

Confoederatio Helvetica

[Canadjun]

@Johnny_L.A

I don’t know about car stickers, but the convention for postal codes calls for two letters. Here’s a page I use all the time.

WTH is the Neutral Zone? (see your chart)

Sounds like something out of Star Trek!

[lisiate]

The Neutral Zone was an ill-defined bit of territory between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Why a bit of desert with no permanent structures got an ISO 3166 code is beyond me though.

[Lemur866]

Man, here in the far future of 2015 we have a lot fewer zones than I thought we’d have back when I was a kid in the 70s. No phantom zone, no forbidden zone, and now they’ve even abolished the neutral zone!

[Northern_Piper]

@lisiate

The Neutral Zone was an ill-defined bit of territory between Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Why a bit of desert with no permanent structures got an ISO 3166 code is beyond me though.

Oil.

In the Middle East, it’s always about oil.

[Arjuna34]

@Canadjun

WTH is the Neutral Zone? (see your chart)

Sounds like something out of Star Trek!

In addition to the wikipedia link from lisiate, there’s also Cecil’s take: What’s up with the “neutral zones” near Saudi Arabia?

Not sure if it’s up to date though.

[MikeS]

@Arjuna34

In addition to the wikipedia link from lisiate, there’s also Cecil’s take: What’s up with the “neutral zones” near Saudi Arabia?

Not sure if it’s up to date though.

If you believe Wikipedia, Saudi Arabia registered the appropriate treaty with the U.N. a few months after the column was written. (As noted in the follow-up column at the end, Saudi Arabia and Iraq had negotiated a treaty divvying up the Neutral Zone in 1981, but nobody else was privy to the details until 1991.) So now everyone’s in agreement that it no longer exists.