The {{CountryAbbr2}} template attempts to generate the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 or ISO 3166-2 code for a named country or geographic region, for use in the region: parameter of {{Coord}}. It attempts a ISO 3166-2 region code for locations in Canada, France, Germany, India, and the United States. It attempts a ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code for all other locations.

The first (required) argument specifies the name of the country, such as "United States" or "Chile".

The second (optional) argument is the name of a state or province within the specified country, such as "Alaska".

Attempts have been made to recognize variations commonly seen in infoboxes, such as:

  • {{CHL}}
  • {{flag|Chile}}

So far, however, the template has failed to keep up with the ingenuity of infobox creators.

Locations in Canada, India, and the United States generate invalid region codes (CA-X, IN-X, and US-X) if the second argument is omitted, blank, or invalid.

{{CountryAbbr2}} sometimes invokes a helper template:

  • {{CanAbbr2}} - provinces, territories, etc. of Canada
  • {{FraAbbr}} - departments, etc. of France
  • {{IndAbbr}} - states, etc. of India
  • {{StateAbbr}} - states, districts, etc. of the United States

A nation's flag data is matched to the flag+wikilink as in:

  • {{flag|nation}} - shows flag + wikilinked nation name
  • {{country flag2|alias=Canada | name=Canada| flag alias=Flag of Canada.svg}} - invoked inside {flag}

Each nation's flag can be specified by a 3-letter flag template, such as: {{CAN}}, {{USA}}, {{FRA}}, {{POL}}, {{PRC}}, {{JPN}}, {{WAL}}, etc.