New Countries: Curaçao, Sint Maarten and “Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba”

Three new countries came into being after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles in October 2010. Curaçao and Sint Maarten became countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands whereas Bonaire, Saba, and Sint Eustatius became special municipalities of the Netherlands proper.  ISO assigned the code BQ to the three BES islands, which results in the following table:

	ISO2	ISO3	ISO#	FIPS	CURR
Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba	BQ	BES	535	NL	USD
Curaçao	CW	CUW	531	UC	ANG/CMG
Sint Maarten	SX	SXM	534	NN	ANG/CMG

The island of Saint Martin is divided into the French northern part (MF) and the Dutch southern part (SX). The French northern part seceded from Guadeloupe in 2007.

Note: The newly assigned ISO code ‘BQ’ may cause some issues as it was already in use in the past. Till 1979 it referred to the British Antarctic Territory (codes BQ, ATB) before it was merged with Antarctica (AQ).