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Updates: 

I added 2010 census figures.

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter II-3 is dated 2011-12-15. For Timor-Leste, the only change is that the Portuguese name for Dili is now given as Díli, with an acute accent over the first i.

Update 1 to the U.S. standard "Geopolitical Entities and Codes" is dated 2010-08-20. It assigns FIPS codes to the districts of Timor-Leste. Manufahi was accidentally left out. Update 3, issued on 2011-02-28, fixes the error.

FIPS PUB 10-4 Change Notice 13 was issued on 2008-02-04. The only change for Timor-Leste is to adopt the correct official name of the country (replacing "East Timor").

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter number I-4, dated 2002-12-10, changes the name of East Timor to Timor-Leste, in conformance with ISO 3166-1, and corrects a misspelling of the name of Liquiçá district.

ISO 3166-1 Newsletter Number V-6 is dated 2002-11-15. It changes the official name of the country from East Timor to Timor-Leste. It explains that the United Nations Secretariat has issued a new terminology bulletin, in which Timor-Leste is given as the official name of the country in English, French, and Spanish. "East Timor" had been described as the provisional name of the country, since its independence. The second word should probably be pronounced like the English word "lest".

ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Number I-3 was published on 2002-08-20. It assigns codes to the thirteen districts of East Timor, as shown in the table below.

ISO 3166-1 Newsletter Number V-5 is dated 2002-05-21. It lists the formal name of East Timor as Democratic Republic of East Timor. It also changes the Alpha-2 ISO code for East Timor from TP to TL and the Alpha-3 code from TMP to TLS. The new codes derive from the Portuguese name of the new country, Timor Leste. The official languages of the country will be Portuguese and Tetum. English and Bahasa Indonesia will be working languages.

Change Notice 4 to FIPS PUB 10-4 is dated 2000-02-25. It lists East Timor as a separate country. Its FIPS country code is TT. Previously, East Timor had been listed as one of the divisions of Indonesia, with ID27 as its code.

Country overview: 

Short name	TIMOR-LESTE
ISO code	TL
FIPS code	TT
Languages	Portuguese (pt), Tetum
Time zone	+9
Capital	Dili

 

During the colonial period, part of the East Indian island of Timor was a Portuguese territory. The Portuguese inhabitants called it simply Timor. In English, it was more often referred to as Portuguese Timor. In 1951, East Timor became an overseas province of Portugal. In 1976, Indonesia unilaterally annexed the area. Portugal, among others, never recognized Indonesia's sovereignty. On 1999-08-30, a referendum was held in East Timor. The electorate favored independence by a 78.5% majority. The UNTAET (United Nations Transitional Administration for East Timor) relinquished its authority to the new Timorese government on 2002-05-20.

Other names of country: 

1. Bahasa Indonesia: Timor Timur, Loro Sae (obsolete)
2. Danish: Østtimor
3. Dutch: Oost-Timor, Democratische Republiek Oost-Timor (formal)
4. English: East Timor (obsolete)
5. Finnish: Itä-Timor
6. French: Timor m oriental, Timor-Leste
7. German: Osttimor, Timor-Leste n
8. Italian: Timor orientale, Timor Est
9. Norwegian: Øst-Timor
10. Portuguese: Timor n Oriental (m in Brazil), Timor-Leste, República f Democrática de Timor-Leste (formal), Timor Português (obsolete)
11. Russian: Демократическая Республика Восточный Тимор (formal)
12. Spanish: Timor Oriental
13. Swedish: Östtimor
14. Icelandic: Tímor
15. Turkish: Doğu Timor, Timor-Leste Demokratik Cumhuriyeti (formal)

Origin of name: 

Eastern part of the island of Timor. Timor is Malay for East, and leste is Portuguese for East, so the name of the country may be translated "East East".

Primary subdivisions: 

Timor-Leste is divided into thirteen districts.

District	HASC	ISO	FIPS	Pop-2010	Pop-2004	Area(km.²)	Area(mi.²)	Capital	Capital (Ind.)
Aileu	TL.AL	AL	TT01	45,512	39,648	729	282	Aileu	Aileu
Ainaro	TL.AN	AN	TT02	59,382	55,381	797	308	Ainaro	Ainaro
Ambeno	TL.AM	OE	TT12	65,524	60,687	815	315	Pante Macassar (Oecusse)	Pante Makasar
Baucau	TL.BC	BA	TT03	111,484	106,225	1,494	577	Baucau	Baukau
Bobonaro	TL.BB	BO	TT04	89,787	88,342	1,368	528	Maliana	Maliana
Cova Lima	TL.CL	CO	TT05	60,063	55,714	1,226	473	Suai	Suai
Dili	TL.DL	DI	TT06	234,331	181,997	372	143	Dili	Dili
Ermera	TL.ER	ER	TT07	114,635	107,557	746	288	Ermera	Ermera
Lautém	TL.BT	LA	TT08	60,218	59,241	1,702	657	Los Palos	Los Palos
Liquiçá	TL.LQ	LI	TT09	63,329	57,978	543	210	Liquiçá	Likisia
Manatuto	TL.MT	MT	TT10	43,246	39,015	1,706	658	Manatuto	Manatuto
Manufahi	TL.MF	MF	TT11	48,894	47,568	1,325	512	Same	Same
Viqueque	TL.VQ	VI	TT13	70,177	70,002	1,781	687	Viqueque	Vikeke
13 districts				1,066,582	969,355	14,604	5,638
District: District name (Portuguese). HASC: Hierarchical administrative subdivision codes. ISO: Codes from ISO standard 3166-2. FIPS: Codes from the U.S. government standard "Geopolitical Entities and Codes". Pop-2010: 2010-07-11 census (source [6]). Pop-2004: 2004-07-11 census (source [1]). Area: Source [2] (page 6). This paper also shows populations, but the arithmetic is faulty. Capital: Capital name (Portuguese). The colonial name of Baucau was Vila Salazar. Capital (Ind.): Capital name (Bahasa Indonesia).

Further subdivisions:

See the Subdistricts of Timor-Leste page.

Timor-Leste is divided into districts, which are subdivided into subdistricts, which are further subdivided into sucos.

Territorial extent: 

East Timor includes a small exclave near the western end of the island of Timor, known as Oé-Cussi, and formerly called Okusi Ambeno or other similar names. Atauro (or Kambing) Island is in Dili district. Lautém includes Jako Island. The division of Timor between Portugal and the Netherlands was settled by treaty on 1904-10-01.

The UN LOCODE page  for Timor-Leste 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.

Change history: 

1. At the time of the 1950 census, Portuguese Timor was divided into nine circunscrições (circumscriptions) and one concelho. Some of these appear to be misspelled, but conform to source [5]:

Circumscription	Population
Babonaro	60,383
Bancau	60,290
Cova Lima	18,621
Dili	43,589
Esmera	85,929
Lautém	30,196
Manatuto	31,217
Oé-Cusse	17,476
Suro	52,711
Viqueque	41,966
Total	442,378
Circumscription: Except for Dili, which is a concelho. Population: 1950-09 census (source [5]).

1. Under Indonesian administration, East Timor was divided into thirteen kabupaten (regencies). ISO 3166-1 included a code for the entity, TP, presumably derived from "Timor Português."
2. 2002-05-20: Following a referendum, East Timor became independent of Indonesia. The regencies became the districts of the new country of East Timor. Later that year, it adopted Timor-Leste as its name.

Other names of subdivisions: 

1. Ambeno: Ambino (Bahasa Indonesia); Oecusse, Oecussi, Oecussi Ambeno (variant)
2. Baucau: Baukau (Bahasa Indonesia)
3. Cova Lima: Kova-Lima (Bahasa Indonesia)
4. Liquiçá: Likisia (Bahasa Indonesia)
5. Viqueque: Vikeke (Bahasa Indonesia)

Sources: 

1. [1] National Statistics Directorate  census tables (retrieved 2010-04-30).
2. [2] João Mariano Saldanha and Francisco da Costa Guterres: Toward a Democratic East Timor: Institutions and Institutional Building. East Timor Study Group, 1999. Pp. 12-13, retrieved 2001-09-04 from http://rspas.anu.edu.au/etsg/papers/2.pdf, now dead.
3. [3] Flags of the World  informant (1999-10; retrieved 2001-09-04)
4. [4] East Timor Action Network  report (2001-02; retrieved 2001-09-04)
5. [5] Demographic Yearbook , 7th Ed. Statistical Office of the United Nations, New York, 1955 (retrieved 2011-08-20).
6. [6] "2010 Census Results: Timor-Leste’s population grows slower than projected ." Government of Timor-Leste (dated 2010-10-22; retrieved 2014-03-04). This page has 2004 population data that are lower than source [1] by ~5%.