!!! Overview
are __three-letter__ [Country Codes] defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the [ISO 3166] standard published by the [International Organization for Standardization] ([ISO]), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. 

[{$pagename}] allow a better visual association between the codes and the country names than the [two-letter alpha-2 codes|ISO 3166-1 alpha-2] (the third set of codes is numeric and hence offers no visual association).

[{$pagename}] were first included as part of the [ISO 3166|ISO 3166-1 alpha-2] standard in its first edition in 1974.

!! More Information
There might be more information for this subject on one of the following:
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* [#1] - [ISO_3166-1_alpha-3|Wikipedia:ISO_3166-1_alpha-3|target='_blank'] - based on information obtained 2017-06-13