ISO 3166-1 is a standard developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It provides a systematic way to represent country names using two-letter (alpha-2), three-letter (alpha-3), and numeric codes. These codes are widely used in various applications, including international shipping, data processing, and internet domain names. The standard helps ensure consistency and clarity in identifying countries and regions across different languages and systems. For example, the code for the United States is "US" in alpha-2 format, "USA" in alpha-3 format, and "840" in numeric format. This uniformity aids in reducing confusion in global communication and data exchange.