Change term - countryCode

[tucotuco]

Term change

• Submitter: John Wieczorek (on behalf of the Biodiversity Data Quality Task Group TG2)
• Efficacy Justification (why is this change necessary?): To validate the use of user-defined ISO codes 'ZZ' and 'XZ' for "unknown" and "High Seas" respectively. 'XZ' is the code recommended for high seas by the UN/LOCODE. See BDQ issues 20, 21, 50, 51, 62, 98.
• Demand Justification (if the change is semantic in nature, name at least two organizations that independently need this term): If only standard two-letter ISO codes are used, there is no accepted way to designate that a first level administrative division given in dwc:country is interpretable as being on the high seas (beyond national jurisdiction), or to distinguish that from explicitly unknown or unambiguously interpretable to a single country code. This proposal provides for a standard way to designate the high seas and to designate (separately) locations that can not be assigned to a single dwc:countryCode.
• Stability Justification (what concerns are there that this might affect existing implementations?): This is an added capability that does not change the validity of previously valid values for the term.
• Implications for dwciri: namespace (does this change affect a dwciri term version)?: None

Current Term definition: https://dwc.tdwg.org/list/#dwc_countryCode

Proposed attributes of the new term version (Please put actual changes to be implemented in bold and strikethrough):

• Term name (in lowerCamelCase for properties, UpperCamelCase for classes): countryCode
• Term label (English, not normative): Country Code
• Organized in Class (e.g., Occurrence, Event, Location, Taxon): dcterms:Location
• Definition of the term (normative): The standard code for the country in which the dcterms:Location occurs.
• Usage comments (recommendations regarding content, etc., not normative): Recommended best practice is to use an ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 country code , or 'ZZ' (for an unknown location or a location unassignable to a single country code), or 'XZ' (for the high seas beyond national jurisdictions). Recommended best practice is to leave this field blank if the dcterms:Location spans multiple entities at this administrative level or if the dcterms:Location might be in one or another of multiple possible entities at this level. Multiplicity and uncertainty of the geographic entity can be captured either in the term dwc:higherGeography or in the term dwc:locality, or both.
• Examples (not normative): AR; SV; XZ; ZZ
• Refines (identifier of the broader term this term refines; normative):
• Replaces (identifier of the existing term that would be deprecated and replaced by this term; normative): http://rs.tdwg.org/dwc/terms/version/countryCode-2023-06-28
• ABCD 2.06 (XPATH of the equivalent term in ABCD or EFG; not normative): DataSets/DataSet/Units/Unit/Gathering/Country/ISO3166Code

[EstebanMH-SiB]

We want to know if the idea behind 'ZZ' for an unknown location is that from now on countryCode will always be populated? Until now, if we were unsure about countryCode, we left this field blank, as it is suggested for smaller administrative regions (stateProvince and county).

And as for the code for high seas beyond national jurisdictions, we agree that is a valuable addition. We just want to know where the code ‘XZ’ comes from.

[tucotuco]

One of the benefits of this proposal is that dwc:countryCode could and therefore should always be unambiguously populated with a two-letter code. It does not mean that Darwin Core will implement a constraint.

The reserved ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code XZ is designated for International Waters. It is used in contexts where a country code is required but the location in question falls outside of any national jurisdiction, such as the high seas or maritime areas beyond exclusive economic zones (EEZs). This code is part of the series of reserved codes that ISO assigns for special purposes rather than representing an actual country or territory.

[ArthurChapman]

@EstebanMH-SiB - as mentioned in the original proposal, there is an explanation given in the link supplied there - UN/LOCODE. See for example Para 13 ("Pending a more profound study of the problem it was agreed to use the provision in clause 3.1.4 in the
UN/LOCODE Manual, which refers to installations in international waters or international co-operation zones,
for which the country code element “XZ” is available. Agreeing that most of these cases reflected bona fide
needs that should be honoured, the Expert Group agreed to use the code “XZ” to identify offshore installations.")

See also the Wikipedia page on ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2)

[EstebanMH-SiB]

Thank you very much @tucotuco and @ArthurChapman for your explanation! We endorse this proposal on behalf of @SiBColombia