International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO /ˈaɪsoʊ/ EYE-soh; French: Organisation internationale de normalisation; Russian: Международная организация по стандартизации, romanized: Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya po standartizatsii) is an independent, non-governmental, international standard development organization composed of representatives from the national standards organizations of member countries.

Membership requirements are given in Article 3 of the ISO Statutes.

ISO was founded on 23 February 1947, and (as of July 2024^[update]) it has published over 25,000 international standards covering almost all aspects of technology and manufacturing. It has over 800 technical committees (TCs) and subcommittees (SCs) to take care of standards development.

The organization develops and publishes international standards in technical and nontechnical fields, including everything from manufactured products and technology to food safety, transport, IT, agriculture, and healthcare. More specialized topics like electrical and electronic engineering are instead handled by the International Electrotechnical Commission. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The three official languages of ISO are English, French, and Russian.

The International Organization for Standardization in French is Organisation internationale de normalisation and in Russian, Международная организация по стандартизации (Mezhdunarodnaya organizatsiya po standartizatsii).

A common misconception is that ISO is an abbreviation for "International Standardization Organization" or a similar title in another language. In fact, the letters do not officially represent an acronym or initialism. The organization provides this explanation of the name:

Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French), our founders decided to give it the short form ISO. ISO is derived from the Greek word isos (ίσος, meaning "equal"). Whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of our name is always ISO.

During the founding meetings of the new organization, however, the Greek word explanation was not invoked, so this meaning may be a false etymology.