Knowledgebase
How to add and edit countries in PrestaShop 1.5-1.6
By default, your PrestaShop comes with all the existing countries. Each country has some options that you can edit; if necessary you can also add new countries. Initially, after you install PrestaShop only the default store country is enabled. You can enable other countries, and you can also disable enabled countries. On the form for adding customer addresses only the enabled countries can be selected.
In this article we'll go over the process of adding, editing, enabling and disabling countries. For screenshots and some more details check out the tutorial on how to manage countries in PrestaShop 1.5-1.6.
Add and Edit Countries
To add, edit and manage countries, after you log into the admin panel go to Localization menu>Countries sub-menu. On the page that opens there's a table with the countries. To add a new country, click on the button Add new country (in PrestaShop 1.5 it's Add new) that's above the table. To edit a country, click on the Edit button for the particular country that's in the table (in PrestaShop 1.5 the button is an icon that looks like a pencil). In both cases this will open a form with the same settings.
You can set the name of the country, its ISO code (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2), the call prefix; you can choose the default currency for that country and the geographical zone to which it belongs. You can choose whether the zip/postal code is required and set its format. You can change the address format and configure a few other options. All the countries that come prepackaged with PrestaShop have the settings correctly configured, so it's not very likely that you'll have to edit them.
Activate, Deactivate and Mass Edit Countries
As we mentioned, the active countries are those from which customers can select when they add addresses. After you install PrestaShop only the default store country is enabled. To enable/disable countries, go to Localization menu>Countries sub-menu. In the table with the countries there's a column Enabled. The active countries are indicated with green checkmarks, while the disabled ones have red X signs. When you click on the symbol it will turn into the opposite one the the country will be enabled/disabled.
If you have to enable/disable, delete or change the zone of many countries at the same time, you can do that with the drop-down menu that's below the table listing the countries. First, in the table mark the checkbox that's in front of the name of each country that you want to edit, then select the action from the drop-down menu below the table and click on the Apply button next to it.
At the bottom of the page, just under the table with the countries, there's also an option with which you can restrict the selection of countries on the frontend to those covered by the active carriers. If you enable this option, when customers add addresses they will be able to select only from the countries to which the carriers deliver orders (provided that the countries are enabled).
For screenshots and more details read the tutorial on how to manage countries in PrestaShop 1.5-1.6.