The "United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations" is commonly more known as "UN/LOCODE". Although managed and maintained by the UNECE, it is the product of a wide collaboration in the framework of the joint trade facilitation effort undertaken within the United Nations.
Initiated within the UNECE Working Party on Trade Facilitation, UN/LOCODE is based on a code structure set up by UN/ECLAC and a list of locations originating in UN/ESCAP, developed in UNCTAD in co-operation with transport organisations like IATA and the ICS and with active contributions from national governments and commercial bodies. Its first issue in 1981 provided codes to represent the names of some 8.000 locations in the world.
Currently, UN/LOCODE includes over 103,034 locations in 249 countries and territories. It is used by most major shipping companies, by freight forwarders and in the manufacturing industry around the world. It is also applied by national governments and in trade related activities, such as statistics where it is used by the European Union, by the UPU for certain postal services, etc (read more....)
If you are interested in the full text of the formal basis for UN/LOCODE, this can be consulted at UNECE Recommendation No. 16.
The cut-off dates of UN/LOCODE releases are 31 March and 30 September.
UN/LOCODE 2024-1
- Location Code List: UN/LOCODE by Country and Territory
- Secretariat Note: Note by the secretariat introducing the latest version of UN/LOCODE
- ISO 3166 Country and Subdivision codes
- Download: Complete UN/LOCODE (with codes list, support codes, manual and secretariat note, plus MS Access database, text, CSV and/or HTML files)
- Guideline on UN/LOCODE Maintenance