Spellings of country names as recommended by the Permanent Committee on Geographical Names (PCGN).
Documents
Details
PCGN works in conjunction with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) to determine the list of country names and official state titles for use by all government departments. Country names usually reflect current British usage. The official state title, (ie. the form used in formal, legal or diplomatic contexts), where different, is shown and reflects the name used by the state itself. It is translated into English where necessary.
The list is arranged alphabetically by country name.
This information is also contained in the FCDO’s geographical names index.
Updates to this page
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20 July 2026
Updated 'Country names: The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British official use' and 'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present'.
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20 April 2026
Updated: 2006 and 2020 entries for Nepal in 'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present'.
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3 October 2025
Updated 'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present'.
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22 September 2025
Updated 'Country names: The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British official use' and 'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present'.
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26 October 2023
Updated Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to present.
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19 January 2023
Updated 'Micronesia' country name under 'Country names: The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British official use'.
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21 October 2022
Changed Republic of Iceland to Iceland in 'Country names: The Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British official use' and 'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to 2022'.
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21 June 2022
Updated country names lists and 'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to 2020'.
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3 May 2022
Updated the names list.
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29 April 2022
'Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to 2020' updated.
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14 May 2021
Changed Vietnam's state title to Socialist Republic of Viet Nam.
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22 January 2021
Removed previous name for Nepal ("Democratic Federal Republic of Nepal").
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5 November 2020
Added Timeline of country name changes in HMG use: 1919 to 2020.
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11 December 2019
Added Timeline of country name changes in the past 50 years: 1969 to 2019.
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21 June 2019
Changed Burma to Myanmar (Burma)
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19 February 2019
Updated the Country names list for 2019.
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25 May 2018
Updated the detail text and attachment items.
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6 May 2016
Added updated versions of Country name documents.
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3 February 2016
Updated the Country names list which is now provided in 2 formats PDF and XLS.
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1 July 2014
First published.