Classifying things is a common technique humans use to cope with the complexity of the world around us. The role of classification systems in our daily life can hardly be underestimated. Classification systems organize content in a systematic way. They are highly influenced by their respective domain-specific terminologies and can, in turn, have an effect on those domain specific terminologies. Classification systems make domain knowledge accessible to a broad audience beyond the specialists who are directly involved in that domain. Terms are established and knowledge is systemized in classification systems. In many cases classification systems are used to structure large collections of data supporting functions such as data mining or information retrieval. Data dictionaries, technical dictionaries, parts libraries, reference data libraries, and so forth, are examples of data collections that may benefit from being structured by classification systems. Classification systems allow people to communicate about topics by providing sets of concepts that help to reduce the complexity of the topic to a level which is manageable for their users. These concepts allow us to direct the information flow within or between software applications, to communicate with experts from different domains, or to communicate with people of different backgrounds. If the classification system is to be used in more than one linguistic community, it needs to be localized to account for the languages, social conventions, and cultures of its users. To facilitate localization, the classification system needs to be designed so that it is clear, easy to use, and otherwise prepared to be localized. This International Standard provides advice on how to design classification systems and how to express their content so that they are adaptable to different linguistic environments. This International Standard complements existing work such as ISO/IEC°Guide°77, ISO 13584/ IEC 61360, ISO 22745, and ISOIEC 11179. This International Standard states basic principles and requirements for ensuring that classification systems are suitable for worldwide application, considering such aspects as cultural and linguistic diversity as well as market requirements. By applying principles relating to terminology management, this International Standard provides guidance for creating, handling, and using classification systems for international environments. This International Standard addresses the need in many domains for classification systems that are concept based to ensure that they are suitable for worldwide use and can be adapted to specific user communities. It provides information about the design, development, and use of classification systems that are fully enabled for diverse linguistic, cultural, and market- based environments. The International Standard primarily specifies the factors that need to be considered when creating and populating a classification system that will be used in diverse linguistic environments. These factors include the specification of principles for incorporating internationalization aspects into classification systems, and maintaining and using those aspects for the structuring of activities, products, services, agents, and other entities of a company or organization.