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Some geographical entities appear in this database at two levels simultaneously — as an independent ISO 3166-1 country and as an ISO 3166-2 subdivision of a parent country. This is not a bug; it reflects how the ISO standard itself models these territories.

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Why Dual Modeling Exists

A handful of overseas or autonomous territories are listed by ISO 3166 at both levels:
  • ISO 3166-1 assigns them their own two-letter country code (e.g. MQ for Martinique).
  • ISO 3166-2 also lists them as subdivisions of a parent state (e.g. FR-MQ as a subdivision of France).
Martinique is an integral region of the French Republic — its residents vote in French national elections, use the euro, and are EU citizens — but it also has its own TLD (.mq), its own ISO codes, and independent representation in certain international contexts. Both representations are kept in sync. Neither is canonical; both are first-class.

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The 12 French Overseas Territories

ISO 3166-1ISO 3166-2NameState type
GFFR-GFFrench Guianaoverseas region
PFFR-PFFrench Polynesiaoverseas collectivity
TFFR-TFFrench Southern and Antarctic Landsoverseas territory
GPFR-GPGuadeloupeoverseas region
MQFR-MQMartiniqueoverseas region
YTFR-YTMayotteoverseas region
NCFR-NCNew Caledoniaoverseas collectivity
REFR-RERéunionoverseas region
PMFR-PMSaint Pierre and Miquelonoverseas collectivity
BLFR-BLSaint-Barthélemyoverseas collectivity
MFFR-MFSaint-Martin (French part)overseas collectivity
WFFR-WFWallis and Futunaoverseas collectivity

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Other Dual-Modeled Territories

The same pattern applies to territories of other countries:
ParentTerritorycountries.iso2Notes
CNHong Kong SARHKspecial administrative region
CNMacau SARMOspecial administrative region
USPuerto RicoPRoutlying area
USGuamGUoutlying area
USAmerican SamoaASoutlying area
USNorthern Mariana IslandsMPoutlying area
USU.S. Virgin IslandsVIoutlying area
NOSvalbardSJarctic region

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How to Query

Pick the model that matches the question being asked.

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Everything in France (metropolitan + all overseas territories)

Use the FR country and traverse via state_id: 
SELECT c.*
FROM cities c
JOIN states s ON c.state_id = s.id
WHERE s.country_code = 'FR';
-- includes all 12 overseas territories

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Only Martinique (the territory in isolation)

Filter by the territory’s own ISO 3166-1 code: 
SELECT * FROM cities WHERE country_code = 'MQ';

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Metropolitan France only (exclude overseas)

Exclude the 12 overseas codes explicitly: 
SELECT * FROM cities
WHERE country_code = 'FR'
  AND state_code NOT IN (
    'GF','PF','TF','GP','MQ','YT','NC','RE','PM','BL','MF','WF',
    '971','972','973','974','976'  -- INSEE codes for DROM
  );
The five DROM territories (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Réunion, Mayotte) currently use INSEE numeric codes (971–976) as their state_code, while the overseas collectivities use ISO 3166-2 alphabetic codes. A future update will align all to ISO 3166-2 alphabetic format.

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JavaScript

import { getCitiesOfCountry } from '@countrystatecity/countries';

// All French cities including overseas territories
const allFrench = await getCitiesOfCountry('FR');

// Martinique only
const martinique = await getCitiesOfCountry('MQ');

// Metropolitan France only
const OVERSEAS = new Set(['GF','PF','TF','GP','MQ','YT','NC','RE','PM','BL','MF','WF']);
const metropolitan = allFrench.filter(c => !OVERSEAS.has(c.country_code));

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Impact on API Responses

When you query /v1/countries, both MQ (Martinique) and FR (France) appear as separate entries. Both return valid states and cities. This is intentional — it ensures that code doing country_code === 'MQ' continues to work correctly.
If you are building country pickers or dropdowns, you may want to filter out the overseas territories from the top-level country list to avoid showing both “France” and “Martinique” as separate country options. Use the region/subregion fields or an explicit exclusion list.

City Types

How the cities.type field works and how to filter to genuine settlements.

Database Schema

Full table definitions including level and parent_id fields on states and cities.