CH for Switzerland / E for Spain
 

Countries in Europe can have some strange abbreviations. For example: Switzerland is CH. Spain is E. They use these abbreviations on forms and on the back of cars. Anybody know what Finnland is?

CH stands for 'Confoederatio Helvetica' or Helvetic Confederation, with 'Helvetia' being the Latin name for Switzerland (cfr. Julias Caesar).
The explanation for the E of Spain is a lot more simple: Spain is called 'España' in Spanish.
For Finland it's simly FI.

What about Liechtenstein?

FI for Finland seems to me to be a way of simplifying things for everyone; I believe the name of the country in its own language is Suomi.

Schuler, I somehow thought you live in Switzerland and you think CH for Switzerland is funny? Also we are used to E for Spain (as stardust pointed out - Espana or Espagne in French for example. ). S is used by Sweden.

The letter code for Finland is FIN. It used to be SF (Suomi Finnland).

For Liechtenstein, the colde is FL, which stands for Fuerstentum Liechtenstein (Principality of Liechtenstein).

FL for Liechtenschtein. I think I misunderstood. You don't live in Switzerland if you don't know this.

Kappa: I don't think it's funny. I think it's informative. A lot of people don't know about these abbreviations and I was hoping this might be informative to them. To be honest, I didn't know Finland but I did know FL.

P.S. Thanks for all the responses. It's great to see how many people are aware of these abbreviations.

How many of you residing outside of Europe drive around with an European country code abbreviation oval on your vehicle? I don't, though I do sport a grille badge from a car club of a foreign country and also a set of British license plates mounted under my regular ones.

I know - pretentious as heck. Guilty as charged. :)

Well you did not use the word funny. You said "strange", which is about the same thing to me. And I thought you asked about Liechtenstein. I did not know you posted the question just to try us. So do you live in CH?

I knew when Finnland was using SF (Suomi Finnland) but did not know they changed it to FIN.

Finland is officially bilingual because there are areas in the south west and the Åland islands where Swedish is the main language, hence the country is known by both its Finnish and Swedish names (Suomi and Finnland), so the code was SF.
The International Standards Organization has devised two-letter codes for every country:
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-serv.../list-en1.html
The ISO code for Finland is FI, and Liechtenstein is LI.
An extra letter is added to give the ISO code for currencies: sterling is GBP, Swiss Francs are CHF, Norwegian Kroner are NOK, etc.

Jawohl...I've been here twenty years. I remember the first time I saw "A" for Austria. I thought this was strange because they call themselves Oesterreich.

When growing up in the states, we always had a CH on the back of our car because my parents are Swiss. When we went to the Swiss Park in Bonney Lake, WA, half of the cars had a CH somewhere on the back of their car. It was great.

GeoffHammer: I've never heard of this. I've also never seen the LI for Liechtenstein. When did they decide on these codes? Recently? Will people be using these new abbreviations to identify their countries?

Also, are the calling the Euro, DE (Deutschland Euro) or FE (France Euro)? Or is it just EE (European Euro)?

I know...all these questions. And I really don't know the answer.

The ISO country codes have been in use since 1976. Currency codes are three letters: the country code plus an additional letter, eg USD, GBP, DKK, FIM. The euro doesn't belong to any one country so is, I believe, EUR.

Got it. Thanks for the answer.

Hey, what about MV and ACK? ;)

How about LV? Saw it on a car bumper today. Couldn't figure out what it would be.

GeoHammer, it seems to me most Europeans don't know the ISO codes you are talking about. For them (including me who live there), the codes we know are mostly 1-letter (D=Germany, F=France, B=Belgium, etc) and occationally 2-letter, Pl=Poland, NL=Netherland, etc.). You used to see this on the oval stickers on the back of the cars. Today, this code is on the EU's standard licence plate. On this level at least, they are not following the ISO code you are taking about.

LV = possibly Latvia (or Louis Vuitton ;) ) ?

In Washington, DC, we have started seeing "VI" on bumpers...someone said it is in tribute to the local grammatically-challenged village idiot.

Finland used to be SF for Suomi Finland, not Soviet Finland as many thought. =)

Many of us these codes for internet searches. I type in the www, then whatever I happen to be looking for and add the country code. I often locate a particular hotel's own website this way.

"Suomi Finland, not Soviet Finland"

Yes, and Finland could not adapt SU (Suomi) because that was the abbreviation for Sovietunion. Hence, SF. But that caused the above mentioned Soviet Finland mix-up, and because Finland begins with an S only in Finnish and Estonian it was changed to FIN a few years ago.

Well kybourbon,

The country codes on the cars are not always the same as the internet domain extensions. Especially the one letter codes, like B(elgium), E(spagna), I(taly), F(rance), S(weden), become two letter domain codes (respectively .be,.es, .it, .fr, .sw)

The codes used on the internet are normally the ISO codes. The obvious exception is the United Kingdom, for which the ISO code and the code on cars is "GB", but internet addresses do not end in ".gb".
Sweden, incidentally, is SE, not "SW".

Kappa, I don't think you read Geoff's comment correctly. He said "*Currency* codes are three letters: the country code plus an additional letter, eg USD, GBP, DKK, FIM". As you correctly say, most European country codes are one letter, e.g. D = Deutschland, but some are 2 - like GB = Great Britain and DK = Denmark. So British Pounds = GBP and Danish Kroner = DKK. Where the country code is one letter, the currency code is 2 - e.g. France = F so French francs used to be FF.

Although on second thoughts I think I've seen that padded out to FRF too. Anyone, these are currency codes - *not* country codes.

The ISO code for French francs was FRF because the ISO code for France is FR. The old codes, as used on cars, were one, two or three letters (eg, F, DK or IRL). The ISO codes are two letters for every country, and three letters for every currency.