Chinese National Standards

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This article is about the national standards of the Republic of China based in Taiwan. See also Guobiao for the National Standards of the People's Republic of China.

The national standards of the Republic of China administering Taiwan, Pescadores, Quemoy and Matsu are titled the Chinese National Standards (CNS) (中華民國國家標準). They are administered by the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. These standards are divided into 26 numbered categories. Applying the National Standards is voluntary unless authorities in charge cite any parts of the standards as laws and regulations. By the end of 2003, more than 15000 national standards have been issued. Although the Republic of China was removed in 1950 from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for failure to pay membership dues accordingly, there are still many National Standards translated from ISO standards into Chinese. A few standards also have English versions, but in case of any divergence of interpretation, the Chinese text shall prevail.

Because the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China can both be abbreviated as China, the Chinese National Standards may also literally mean the National Standards of the People's Republic of China. However, the Republic of China has no plan to change the name "Chinese National Standards" yet. Confusions may arise in Chinese language.

Each standard has a general number and may be prefixed "CNS", such as CNS 11296. The general numbers, English names and any similar ISO standards of some standards are listed below:

General number	English name	Similar ISO standard
5	Trimmed Sizes of Writing and Printing Paper	ISO 216
5205	Information Technology-7 Bit Coded Character Set for Information Interchange	ISO/IEC 646
7648	Data Elements and Interchange Formats -- Information Interchange -- Representation of Dates and Times	ISO 8601
7654	Information technology -- Character code structure and extension techniques	ISO/IEC 2022
7656	Information processing -- ISO 8-bit code for information interchange - Structure and rules for implementation	ISO/IEC 4873
8381	Information Interchange -- Representation of Human Sexes	ISO 5218
10987	The International System of Units (SI)	ISO 1000
11296	General Principles Concerning Quantities, Units and Symbols	ISO 31
11643	Chinese Standard Interchange Code (for Generally Used Chinese Characters)
12680	Quality management systems - Fundamentals and vocabulary	ISO 9000
12842	Codes for the Representation of Names of Countries	ISO 3166
12864	Documentation - International Standard Book Numbering (ISBN)	ISO 2108
12873	Codes for the Representation of Currencies and Funds	ISO 4217
13188	Code for the Representation of Names of Languages	ISO 639
13246	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1	ISO/IEC 8859-1
13247	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 2: Latin alphabet No. 2	ISO/IEC 8859-2
13325	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 3: Latin alphabet No. 3	ISO/IEC 8859-3
13326	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 4: Latin alphabet No. 4	ISO/IEC 8859-4
13327	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 5: Latin / Cyrillic alphabet	ISO/IEC 8859-5
13328	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 9: Latin alphabet No. 5	ISO/IEC 8859-9
13384	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 6: Latin / Arabic alphabet	ISO/IEC 8859-6
13385	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 7: Latin / Greek alphabet	ISO/IEC 8859-7
13386	Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded graphic character sets - Part 8: Latin / Hebrew alphabet	ISO/IEC 8859-8
13524	Standard Representation of Latitude, Longitude and Altitude for Geographic Point Locations	ISO 6709
13611	Bibliographic References: Content, Form and Structure	ISO 690
14001	Environmental Management Systems -- Specification with Guidance for Use	ISO 14001
14649	Information Technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS)	ISO/IEC 10646