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Updates: 

The "St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha Constitution Order 2009" - effectively the country's new constitution - went into force on 2009-09-01. Under it, the name of the territory is changed from "St Helena and Dependencies" to "St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha". The name for the new status of the subdivisions is unclear, but dependencies is no longer appropriate. Ascension and Tristan da Cunha were and will continue to be governed by island councils.

The area given in "Administrative Subdivisions of Countries" for Tristan da Cunha includes only the island itself. If the other islands administered as part of Tristan da Cunha dependency are counted, the total area of the dependency is 200 km.² (77 mi.²), and the total area of Saint Helena (the country) is 410 km.² (158 mi.²).

Country overview: 

Short name	SAINT HELENA
ISO code	SH
FIPS code	SH
Language	English (en)
Time zone	+0
Capital	Jamestown

 

Saint Helena has been a British possession for the entire 20th century.

Other names of country: 

1. Dutch: Sint Helena
2. French: Sainte-Hélène
3. German: Sankt Helena
4. Italian: Sant'Elena
5. Portuguese: Santa Helena
6. Spanish: Santa Elena

Origin of name: 

named after Saint Helena (248?-328?), mother of Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine; discovered by João da Nova on Saint Helena's Day, 1502-08-18.

Primary subdivisions: 

Saint Helena is divided into one administrative area and two dependencies.

Dependency	HASC	FIPS	Population	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital
Ascension	SH.AC	SH01	1,122	88	34	Georgetown
Saint Helena	SH.SH	SH02	4,255	122	47	Jamestown
Tristan da Cunha	SH.TA	SH03	284	200	77	Edinburgh
3 divisions			5,661	410	158
Dependency: except Ascension, which is an administrative area. HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. If periods are replaced by hyphens, these are the same as the codes from ISO standard 3166-2. FIPS: Codes from FIPS PUB 10-4. Population: 2008-02-10 census. Capitals: These are not formally so designated; they are the only significant population centers.

Postal codes: 

According to address expert Graham Rhind, the postal codes of these divisions in the U.K. system are respectively ASCN 1ZZ, STHL 1ZZ, and TDCU 1ZZ.

Note: The international country dialing code for Saint Helena and Tristan da Cunha is +290, but for Ascension Island it's +247.

Territorial extent: 

Tristan da Cunha includes Inaccessible Island, Gough Island, and the Nightingale Islands.

Origins of names: 

1. Ascension Island: discovered by João da Nova on 1501-06-01, Ascension Day
2. Tristan da Cunha: discovered by Portuguese navigator Tristão da Cunha in 1506

Change history: 

1. 1922-09-12: Ascension transferred from direct rule by the Admiralty Board to Saint Helena.
2. 1938-01-12: Tristan da Cunha became a dependency of Saint Helena.
3. 2009-09-01: Under new constitution, the formal name of the country changed from "St Helena and Dependencies" to "St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha".

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Ascension: Ascensão (Portuguese)
2. Tristan da Cunha: Tristão da Cunha (Portuguese)

Sources:

2008 census data are from this Wikipedia article  (retrieved 2009-06-05). Note that the total population given in the table on that page is not the sum of the three individual territory populations. It is, in fact, the sum of the 1998 population of Saint Helena and the 2008 populations of Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.