ISO 639-1

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ISO 639-1:2002, Codes for the representation of names of languages—Part 1: Alpha-2 code, is the first part of the ISO 639 series of international standards for language codes. Part 1 covers the registration of "set 1" two-letter codes. There are 183 two-letter codes registered as of June 2021. The registered codes cover the world's major languages. Infoterm (International Information Centre for Terminology) is the registration authority for ISO 639-1 codes. These codes are a useful international and formal shorthand for indicating languages. ISO 639-1 is more restrictive than other ISO 639 parts, such as ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3, which cover a wider range of languages and variations. Many multilingual websites, including Wikipedia, use these codes to prefix URLs of localised versions: for example, ja.wikipedia.org is the Japanese version of Wikipedia.

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