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Updates: 

Sorin Cosoveanu found the 2014 census report with final results (source [3]).

ISO 3166-2 issued an update on 2014-10-30 that changes the status of Conakry special zone to governorate, and of the seven former governorates to administrative regions.

Update 12 to Geopolitical Entities and Codes (formerly FIPS 10-4) is dated 2013-06-30. It implies that the prefectures have been decommissioned, leaving the seven governorates and administrative area as the current primary subdivisions (now called administrative regions and governorate, respectively). I have not found any confirmation that the prefectures were suppressed. I've added the FIPS codes to the table under "Further subdivisions."

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number II-1, dated 2010-02-03, changes the names of the seven governorates by deleting the prefix "Gouvernorat de" from each one.

ISO 3166-2 has come out in a second edition, dated 2007-12-15. Previously, ISO had designated Conakry as a city, and coded it as if it were on the administrative region level. Now its status is listed as zone spéciale (special zone), and it's on the same level as the prefectures. I've added the code for Conakry to the table below.

When "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries" was written, the current version of the ISO 3166-2 standard erroneously assigned a code of KD to both Kindia and Koundara prefectures. In order to get unique codes, I arbitrarily changed the code for Kindia to KI. Later, ISO 3166-2 was updated to fix the anomaly, and the fix they adopted was to change the code for Koundara to KN. In 2004, I added text from the book to the website. In so doing, I accidentally used the old ISO codes with my arbitrary correction as HASC codes. Later, I changed the HASC codes to be consistent with the ISO codes.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-2 was published on 2002-05-21. It contains two changes for Guinea. The status of Conakry is changed from gouvernorat (governorate) to ville (city). According to FIPS, Conakry is a capitale d'état - zone spéciale (national capital - special zone). The other change is to the code for Koundara. The original ISO 3166-2 standard had incorrectly assigned the same code, KD, to both Kindia and Koundara. The update changes the code for Koundara to KN.

Change Notice 7 to FIPS PUB 10-4 is dated 2002-01-10. It reflects changes that are already shown in the book "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries", and in ISO standard 3166-2.

Country overview: 

Short name	GUINEA
ISO code	GN
FIPS code	GV
Language	French (fr)
Time zone	+0
Capital	Conakry

 

Guinea was known as French Guinea in 1900. In 1943, it and seven other French colonies were combined to form French West Africa (Afrique Occidentale Française, capital Dakar). Guinea became independent on 1958-10-02.

Other names of country: 

1. Danish: Guinea
2. Dutch: Guinee, Republiek Guinee (formal)
3. English: Republic of Guinea (formal), French Guinea (obsolete), Guinea-Conakry (variant)
4. Finnish: Guinea
5. French: Guinée f, République f de Guinée (formal), Guinée française (obsolete)
6. German: Guinea n
7. Icelandic: Gínea
8. Italian: Guinea f
9. Norwegian: Guinea, Republikken Guinea (formal)
10. Portuguese: Guiné f, Guiné-Conacri, República f da Guiné f (formal)
11. Russian: Гвинейская Республика (formal), Гвинея
12. Spanish: Guinea, República f de Guinea f (formal), Guinea Francesa (obsolete)
13. Swedish: Guinea
14. Turkish: Gine Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

Tuareg aginaw: speechless people, applied by Berbers to blacks speaking unknown tongues

Primary subdivisions: 

Guinea is divided into 34 préfectures. FIPS calls them régions administratives (administrative regions). ISO calls Conakry a gouvernorat (governorate).

Prefecture	HASC	ISO	FIPS	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Gov
Beyla	GN.BE	BE	GV01	326,082	17,452	6,738	N
Boffa	GN.BF	BF	GV02	212,583	9,100	3,514	B
Boké	GN.BK	BK	GV03	450,278	11,053	4,268	B
Conakry	GN.CK	C	GV04	1,660,973	308	119	C
Coyah	GN.CO	CO	GV30	263,861	2,166	836	D
Dabola	GN.DB	DB	GV05	181,137	5,508	2,127	F
Dalaba	GN.DL	DL	GV06	133,677	4,400	1,699	M
Dinguiraye	GN.DI	DI	GV07	196,469	14,500	5,598	F
Dubréka	GN.DU	DU	GV31	330,548	5,676	2,192	D
Faranah	GN.FA	FA	GV09	280,170	13,000	5,019	F
Forécariah	GN.FO	FO	GV10	242,942	4,200	1,622	D
Fria	GN.FR	FR	GV11	96,700	1,811	699	B
Gaoual	GN.GA	GA	GV12	193,612	11,500	4,440	B
Guéckédou	GN.GU	GU	GV13	290,611	4,400	1,699	N
Kankan	GN.KA	KA	GV32	473,359	11,564	4,465	K
Kérouané	GN.KE	KE	GV15	207,547	9,750	3,764	K
Kindia	GN.KD	KD	GV16	439,614	9,115	3,519	D
Kissidougou	GN.KS	KS	GV17	283,778	8,872	3,425	F
Koubia	GN.KB	KB	GV33	100,170	2,800	1,081	L
Koundara	GN.KN	KN	GV18	129,974	5,505	2,125	B
Kouroussa	GN.KO	KO	GV19	268,630	16,220	6,263	K
Labé	GN.LA	LA	GV34	318,938	3,014	1,164	L
Lélouma	GN.LE	LE	GV35	163,069	2,140	826	L
Lola	GN.LO	LO	GV36	171,561	3,940	1,521	N
Macenta	GN.MC	MC	GV21	278,456	8,600	3,320	N
Mali	GN.ML	ML	GV22	288,001	9,790	3,780	L
Mamou	GN.MM	MM	GV23	318,981	8,000	3,089	M
Mandiana	GN.MD	MD	GV37	335,999	12,300	4,749	K
Nzérékoré	GN.NZ	NZ	GV38	396,949	4,625	1,786	N
Pita	GN.PI	PI	GV25	278,530	4,320	1,668	M
Siguiri	GN.SI	SI	GV39	687,002	15,500	5,985	K
Télimélé	GN.TE	TE	GV27	284,409	9,000	3,475	D
Tougué	GN.TO	TO	GV28	124,280	6,400	2,471	L
Yomou	GN.YO	YO	GV29	114,371	6,000	2,317	N
34 prefectures				10,523,261	245,857	94,926
HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. Population: 2014-03-01 census. Capitals: Names are the same as the administrative region names. Gov: Code for the governorate to which the region belongs, as in table below.

Further subdivisions:

See the Subprefectures of Guinea page.

The prefectures are subdivided into 335 sous-préfectures (subprefectures) and five communes (the communes are in Conakry: Dixinn, Kaloum, Matam, Matoto, and Ratoma). These, in turn, are subdivided into districts and sectors. The prefectures are also grouped into seven governorates or regions, and one administrative zone, Conakry.

Region	ISO	FIPS	Population	Area(km.²)
Boké	B	GV40	1,083,147	38,969
Conakry	C	GV04	1,660,973	308
Faranah	F	GV41	941,554	41,880
Kankan	K	GV42	1,972,537	65,334
Kindia	D	GV43	1,561,374	30,157
Labé	L	GV44	994,458	24,144
Mamou	M	GV45	731,188	16,720
Nzérékoré	N	GV46	1,578,030	45,017
ISO: Codes from ISO 3166-2. FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. Population: 2014-03-01 census.

 

Before ~1988, the prefectures were grouped into these "supra-regions":

English name	French name	Population	Area(km.²)	Capital
Conakry	Conakry	705,280	308	Conakry
Lower Guinea	Guinée-Maritime	1,147,301	43,980	Kindia
Fouta Djallon	Moyenne-Guinée	1,595,007	51,710	Labé
Upper Guinea	Haute-Guinée	1,086,679	92,535	Kankan
Forest-Guinea	Guinée-Forestière	1,246,747	57,324	Nzérékoré
Totals		5,781,014	245,857
Population: 1983 census

Territorial extent: 

The UN LOCODE page  for Guinea lists locations in the country, some of them with their latitudes and longitudes, some with their ISO 3166-2 codes for their subdivisions. This information can be put together to approximate the territorial extent of subdivisions.

Origins of names: 

Conakry: local word konakri: across the water

Change history: 

1. 1904: Îles de Los transferred from Sierra Leone to French Guinea by cession.
2. 1946-10-07: Status of French Guinea changed from French colony to French overseas territory.
3. 1980: Name of Youkoukoun region changed to Koundara.
4. 1985: Coyah region split from Dubréka; Koubia and Lélouma regions split from Labé; Lola region split from Nzérékoré; Mandiana region formed from parts of Kankan and Siguiri.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Conakry: Conacri (Portuguese); Konakry (obsolete)
2. Guéckédou: Guékédou (variant)
3. Koundara: Youkoukoun, Youkounkoun (obsolete)

Sources: 

1. [1] Répartition de la population par Région et Préfecture selon le sexe  cites as its source Direction Nationale de la Statistique - RGPH 1996 (retrieved 2013-08-07). RGPH is the General Census of Population and Housing.
2. [2] "Le redéploiement des enseignants en Guinée ", by Alamah Conde and Mamadou Aliou Sow, has 1998 population estimates in Annexe 1 (retrieved 2004-11-12).
3. [3] Decree for Publication of the Final Results of the 2014 Census  (retrieved 2016-04-09).