LEFT / Geography Teacher

Extract Country Code

I need to extract the first 2 letters of the ISO code to label the map regions.

formula.xlsx
=LEFT(A2,2)

How it works: The LEFT function extracts a specified number of characters from the beginning (left side) of a text string. In this formula, `A2` refers to the cell containing the full ISO code (e.g., 'US-CA-LA'), and `2` specifies that we want to extract the first two characters from the left. This effectively isolates the two-letter country code for map labeling.

Data Setup

ISO_Code
US-CA-LA
GB-ENG-LDN
FR-IDF-PAR
DE-BY-MUN
JP-KTO-OSK

Step-by-Step Guide

1

In cell B2 (or your desired output cell), type the formula: `=LEFT(A2,2)`

2

Press Enter to see the extracted country code (e.g., 'US').

3

Click on cell B2 again, then drag the fill handle (the small green square at the bottom-right corner of the cell) down to apply the formula to the rest of your ISO codes in column A.