UN/LOCODE explained

UN/LOCODE, the United Nations Code for Trade and Transport Locations, is a geographic coding scheme developed and maintained by United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), a unit of the United Nations. UN/LOCODE assigns codes to locations used in trade and transport with functions such as seaports, rail and road terminals, airports, post offices and border crossing points. The first issue in 1981 contained codes for 8,000 locations. The version from 2008 contained codes for about 60,000 locations.^[1]

Anglicized names

Beside the abbreviation, UN/LOCODE also defines a spelling for each location that can be written using only letters of the English alphabet. This was achieved by stripping off the diacritics from the romanized local name.

Structure

UN/LOCODEs have five characters. The first two characters are letters. They code a country by the table defined in ISO 3166-1 alpha-2. The three remaining characters code a location within that country. Letters are preferred, but if necessary digits 2 through 9 may be used (This avoids confusion between "O" and "0", and between "I" and "1".).

For each country there can be a maximum of 35*35*35 = 42 875 entries.

For the US, the 17575 possible combinations of 3-character codes have been almost exhausted. In 2006, the Secretariat added 646 entries to the 2006-2 issue of UN/LOCODE, in which the third position of 3-character codes is a digit from 2 to 9. The 2007 issue of UN/LOCODE contains 689 such US entries.

Loose consistency with existing IATA airport codes

For airports, the three letters following the country code are not always identical to the IATA airport code. According to the Secretariat note for Issue 2006-2, there are 720 locations showing a different IATA code.^[2]

Official UN/LOCODE tables

UN/LOCODEs are released as a table. An individual revision is officially referred to as an "issue". A discussion of the table's structure follows.

Examples

Examples of locations as shown in Issue 2006-2^[3]
Ch	LOCODE	Name	NameWoDiacritics	SubDiv	Function	Status	Date	IATA	Coordinates
	US NYC	New York	New York	NY	`12345---`	AI	0401		4042N 07400W
	DE BER	Berlin	Berlin	BE	`12345---`	AF	0207		5231N 01323E
	DE TXL	Berlin-Tegel Apt	Berlin-Tegel Apt	BE	`---4----`	AF	9501
	FR PAR	Paris	Paris	75	`123-5---`	AF	9501
	GB PAR	Par	Par	CON	`1-------`	AF	9501
	SE GOT	Göteborg	Goteborg	O	`1--45---`	AI	0207	XWL
=	SE	Gothenburg = Göteborg	Gothenburg = Goteborg

Explanations:

US NYC for New York City in the United States. Subdivision is the U.S. state of New York (see ). Function: port, rail, road, airport, postal. IATA code is NYC. Coordinates: .
DE BER for Berlin (city) in Germany. Subdivision is the German state of Berlin (see ). Function: port, rail, road, airport, postal. IATA code is BER. Coordinates: .
DE TXL for Berlin-Tegel Airport in Germany. Function: airport. IATA code is TXL.
FR PAR for Paris (city) in France. Subdivision is the French department of Paris (see ). Function: port, rail, road, postal.
GB PAR for Par in United Kingdom. Subdivision is the English county of Cornwall (see ). Function: port.
SE GOT for Göteborg (Goteborg without diacritics) in Sweden. Subdivision is the Swedish county of Västra Götaland (see ). Function: port, airport, postal. The IATA code of XWL indicated in the table is that of a train station in the city centre of Göteborg (though not the Central Station), while the IATA code for the main airport (Göteborg-Landvetter Airport) is actually GOT. It also has a separate reference entry showing an alternate spelling of Gothenburg.

Data fields

The fields are listed in the official order.

Ch (Changes)

A change from the previous issue is indicated by one of the following characters in the first column:

+ Additions to the issue

# Change in location name (usually spelling) Note: Not defined in the manual http://www.unece.org/cefact/locode/unlocode_manual.pdf

| Change other than location name

X Entries marked for deletion in the next issue

= Reference entry

! US locations with duplicated IATA code, under review

Locode

The code is represented with a space between the country code and the 3-letter element.

Name

The name of the location.

Name Without Diacritics

The name of the location, but all non-latin-base characters are converted.

Can contain ' e.g. L'viv

SubDiv (Subdivision)

The ISO 1 to 3 character alphabetic and/or numeric code for the administrative division (state, province, department, etc.) of the country, as included in ISO 3166-2/1998. Only the latter part of the complete ISO 3166-2 code element (after the hyphen) is shown.

Function

Each defined function gets a classifier; the most important are:

1 = port (for any kind of waterborne transport)
2 = rail terminal
3 = road terminal
4 = airport
5 = postal exchange office
6 = Inland Clearance Depot – ICD or "Dry Port", "Inland Clearance Terminal", etc.
7 = fixed transport functions (e.g. oil platform)"; the classifier "7" is reserved for this function. Noting that the description "oil pipeline terminal" would be more relevant, and could be extended to cover also electric power lines and ropeway terminals.
B = Border crossing function

Status

Indicates the status of the entry by a 2-character code. The following codes are used at present:

AA: Approved by competent national government agency

AC: Approved by Customs Authority

AF: Approved by national facilitation body

AI: Code adopted by international organisation (IATA or ECLAC)

AS: Approved by national standardisation body

RL: Recognised location - Existence and representation of location name confirmed by check against nominated gazetteer or other reference work

RN: Request from credible national sources for locations in their own country

RQ: Request under consideration

RR: Request rejected

QQ: Original entry not verified since date indicated

XX: Entry that will be removed from the next issue of UN/LOCODE

Date

The date the location was added or updated: 0207 is July 2002, 9501 is January 1995, etc.

Observation: The edition published in 2008 contains for additions the value 0701, while in other cases the exact month is used like 9710, 0212.

IATA

The IATA code for the location if different from the second part of the UN/LOCODE.

Coordinates

Some entries have coordinates in the database. They are represented by two numbers: the first followed by either N or S, the second by either E or W.

Remarks

The remarks column can among other things contain a hint to what specifically was changed (See data field - "Change").

Errors

In 2006-07 IQ IRB for Irbil was added while IQ ABL Arbil with almost the same coordinates existed. In the 2007 edition IQ ABL gets marked for deletion and IQ EBL Erbil International Apt is added to the database, but with a different coordinates, reflecting the distance between airport and city. The error is to delete ABL and to insert IRB.

Occasionally locations are listed twice; this is not necessarily an error. In issue 2006-1, ARSMC San Miguel de Tucuman (functions 2,3) was added while ARTUC Tucuman (function 1) already was in the list. The coordinates are with very little deviation the same. Also in 2006-1, ARSSJ San Salvador de Jujuy was added (function 4) while ARJUJ Jujuy (functions 1,2,3,5) already existed.

2007 added a 2nd code for Bánovce Nad Bebravou. SK BAN Bánovce Nad Bebravou --3----- RL 0701 4843N 01815E SK BNB Bánovce nad Bebravou -23--6-- RL 0607 4843N 01815E

The 2007 edition contains character encoding errors in the .txt and .csv files. The name for the new code FR ONM Moёlan-sur-Mer does not show the ё correctly. In the .mdb file it is encoded correctly but the column "NameWoDiacritics" contains the name with diacritics .i.e. "Moёlan-sur-Mer". Users who cannot access .mdb files, cannot obtain from the website a correct list for their databases.

Another error from 2007 code list: DE GXD Gross-Umstadt Gross-Umstadt HE --3----- RL 0201 4952N 00855E + DE UMS Gross-Umstadt Gross-Umstadt HE -23----- RL 0701 4952N 00856E

US TRI + US BOS, same coor and within TRI different coor

US BFS Bristol VA RL -234---- 0212 3636N 08211W cf US JCI, US BSO, US TRI US BSO Bristol Apt TN RL -234---- 0212 3635N 08210W cf US JCI Apt, US BSO Apt, US TRI Apt US TRI Bristol-Johnson City-Kingsport Apt TN RL -234---- 0212 3635N 08210W cf US JCI, US BSO, US TRI US TRI Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol Apt TN RL -234---- 0212 3635N 08210W cf US JCI, US TRI, US BSO US TRI Kingsport-Bristol-Johnson City Apt TN RL -234---- 0212 3635N 08210W cf US JCI, US TRI, US BSO US TRI Kingsport Apt TN AI ---4---- 0212 3632N 08233W cf US BSO Apt, US JCI Apt

Problems

Some entries do not have coordinates, so it is not clear where they actually refer too. If an IATA code changes, then the UN/LOCODE could also be considered to have changed. MS MNI Montserrat Montserrat AI ---4---- 9601

Gerald's Airport from 2005, ICAO: TRPG
W. H. Bramble Airport until 1997, ICAO: formerly TRPM

For Kochi / Cochin the postal function has KOC (1998) and all other functions have COK (2003). IN KOC Kochi Kochi AI ----5--- 9805 IN COK Cochin Cochin KL AA 1234-6-- 0307 0958N 07614E

Release history

	\|	+	X	Total
rowspan=2	Issue	rowspan=2	Date^[4]	rowspan=2	Entries	colspan=5	Changes	rowspan=2	Notes
2007^[5]	2008-03-25	58,875	153	753	4,327	24	5,257
2006-2^[6]	2007-04-30	54,705	15	79	6,400	157	6,651
2006-1^[7]	2006-06-09	48,553	43	42	3,110	11	3,206
2005-2^[8]	2005	50,000	55	178	929	8	1,170	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 45,451
2005-1^[9]	2005-02-28	50,000	46	196	2,291	16	2,549	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 44,538
2004-2^[10]	2004-07-27	50,000	26	87	1,707	5	1,825	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 42,252
2004-1^[11]	2004-02-18	47,725	208	694	1,958	167	3,027	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 40,712
2003-2^[12]	2003	40,000	283	1,099	2,402	324	4,108	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 39,078
2003-1^[13]	2003	38,000	2,779	523	707	2	3,911	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 36,678
2002-2^[14]	2002	36,005	93	252	1,235	6	1,586	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 35,977
2002-1^[15]	2002	35,460	100	597	2,503	24	3,224	Based on 2006-1, entries should be 34,766

Notes:

# Change in location (spelling or other)

| Other changes