Structure of the FIDE ID

As I mentioned in FIDE Struggles with the Growing Popularity of Ratings, the FIDE ID first appears in the historical rating data for January 1999. The structure of the ID is a one to three digit numeric federation ID, followed by a five digit player ID for players within that federation. For example, my own code 2003740 can be read as 20 for the USA, followed by 03740 for my player ID within all American players.

The first rating list with FIDE IDs had 148 different federations. The codes were assigned as shown in the following table, first sorted by federation alpha code, then by federation numeric ID. The two tables show only the first and last 10 codes for each sort. The third column is the count of players for the federation on the 1999 list.

Fed	FedID	Ct
AFG	117	2
AHO	75	7
ALB	47	20
ALG	79	49
AND	69	10
ANG	101	20
ARG	1	665
ARM	133	110
AUS	32	135
AUT	16	625
[...]
URU	30	47
USA	20	1011
UZB	142	62
VEN	39	55
VIE	124	38
WLS	18	73
YEM	94	16
YUG	9	1658
ZAM	87	7
ZIM	110	20
Fed	FedID	Ct
ARG	1	665
BEL	2	160
CZE	3	829
ENG	4	686
FIN	5	206
FRA	6	1260
HUN	7	1391
ITA	8	597
YUG	9	1658
NED	10	486
[...]
BIH	144	91
CRO	145	452
SLO	146	246
TJK	147	9
MOZ	148	2
SVK	149	335
FRM	150	134
NAM	152	3
MAC	154	9
JCI	156	6

The 1999 rating list also had four players without properly formatted FIDE IDs. They are shown here with their federation code and 'FIDE ID':-
- FIE; 19; Krasser, Margit
- FIE; 27; Shkrabi, Eric
- IBS; 28; Wassin, S.
- IBS; 20; Zsiltzova, L.

I'll look at this another time.