Bar Code Basics
edited by David Barth, 10 December 2008. From
Bar Code Information.
BARCODE BASICS: A European Article Number (EAN) is a barcoding standard which is a superset of the original
12-digit Universal Product Code (UPC) system developed in North America. Check the barcode if you are interested
in knowing the country that the item you are considering purchasing came from.
The first two or three digits of an
EAN-13 barcode identify the country in which the manufacturer's identification code was assigned. For example the
EAN: 4 710088 412539 is assigned to Taiwan. This may or may not be the country in which the goods were manufactured
but in many cases, it is.
The following are some EAN identifiers of countries consumers might want to consider prior to
making their decision whether to buy or not. For more information on bar codes, refer to
a Bar Code generation site.
- 00 to 13 (USA & Canada)
- 400 to 440 (Germany)
- 45 + 49 (Japan)
- 460 to 469 (Russian Federation)
- 471 (Taiwan)
- 480 (Philippines)
- 489 (Hong-Kong)
- 626 (Iran)
- 690 - 695 (China)
- 867 (North Korea)
- 880 (South Korea)
- 893 (Vietnam)