An IP contains unique information about the owner’s location, down to their region in the country. Find out what a region code is, and how you can make use of it for your business.

What is a region code?

A region code is an international standard denomination for country subdivisions, established by the ISO-3166-2 code. The countries are established by the ISO-3166-1 code, and together, they form the ISO-3166 standard made by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This standard defines all codes internationally accepted for the names of countries, dependent territories, other areas of geographical difference of interest, and their subdivisions.

Additionally, the ISO-3166-3 code is used for country codes or countries that are no longer in use, either because the country has stopped existing, or because the code was modified for major reasons.

The ISO-3166 standard is updated and maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, and reviewed and voted on by several national standard organizations and some United Nations agencies and international organizations. When necessary, if international or national borders and units change, the ISO-3166 standard may get updates, always published by the official source.

Region codes are usually derived from coding systems already in place in the country that have become accepted internationally, but can sometimes be developed by the agency itself.

Country codes are defined by the ISO-3166-1 code as existing in three formats:

• ISO-3166-1 alpha-2, country codes consisting of two letters, is the most widely used standard by most countries.
• ISO-3166-1 alpha-3, codes consisting of three letters, allows for better visual association to the country names.
• ISO-3166-1 numeric, which consist of three digits each, are most useful for international standards regardless of language or alphabet.

A complete ISO-3166-2 code consists of the code of the country in alpha-2 format, and the region code, which consists of up to three alphanumeric characters, each combination unique to refer to one place. This can be a region, province, parish, or any kind of subdivision, usually as part of a country. 

In some cases, codes are used for several levels of subdivisions. The format usually stays consistent inside each country.

For example, if the visitor is from California, United States, their region code would be CA (for California).

Why region codes are useful

Knowing the region code of the visitors to a website can be handy in many ways. For example, you can optimize your marketing strategy by knowing who sees your website and is interested in your business: depending on the characteristics of your client profile, you can choose market niches and implement your business strategy.

Similarly, by knowing the region code of an IP, you can assess whether you’re getting a large influx of visitors from an area that is not your target, or could even pose a threat.

As such, both your security online and your business strategy can greatly benefit from knowing your visitors’ region code.

How to get the region code of an API

• How to find the region code in the API response

When you make a call to the ipstack API to find out an IP’s full information, you will get a list of objects about said IP. The region code is one of the data fields provided in a standard response, along with the region name.

• How to request only the region code in your API call

The ipstack API’s ‘field’ parameter can be used to request an API response with just one specific object. Click here for specific instructions on how to specify response fields.

How businesses can use region codes to their advantage

Businesses can get millions of website visitors in a day, and looking up the IP region code manually for all of them can be an insurmountable task.

By using a geolocation API service like ipstack, you can get this information in seconds. With an extremely scalable solution, a top-notch security guarantee, ipstack is leader in IP database services.

With ipstack you can implement location restrictions to your website, find out valuable data about your customers like their time zone and currency, and take your marketing strategy to the next level, delivering the best customer experience.

What is a region code

An IP contains unique information about the owner’s location, including their region.

What is a region code?

A region code is an international standard code, defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), consisting of up to three alphanumeric characters, each combination unique to refer to one place. This can be a region, province, parish, or any kind of subdivision, usually as part of a country.

For example, if the visitor is from California, United States, their region code would be CA (for California).

Why region codes are useful

Knowing the region code of the visitors to a website is valuable information that can be used to optimize marketing strategies depending on visitor location.

Similarly the region code of an IP can show unwanted visitors based on region and signal possible threats.

How to get the region code of an API

• How to find the region code in the API response

The region code is one of the data fields provided in a standard response of the ipstack API, along with the region name.

• How to request only the region code in your API call

The ipstack API’s ‘field’ parameter can be used to request an API response with one specific object. Click here for specific instructions on how to specify response fields.

How businesses can use region codes to their advantage

Businesses can get millions of website visitors in a day, and looking up the IP region code manually for all of them can be an insurmountable task.

By using a geolocation API service like ipstack, you can get this information in seconds. With an extremely scalable solution, a top-notch security guarantee, ipstack is leader in IP database services.

With ipstack you can implement location restrictions to your website, find out valuable data about your customers like their timezone and currency, and take your marketing strategy to the next level, delivering the best customer experience.