Country name from ISO short code in dictionary, how to deal with non-ascii chars

Question

I'm making a webapp that takes country short code (google app engine get from request header) and I want to get the country name (full name) not just the 2 letter initials.

I tried making a python dictionary but it breaks bkz the names have non-ascii chars (accent marks, etc).. I used the python library "pycountry" but I'm not sure how to include that in my google app engine project. unfortunately pycountries output also has accent marks, so i can't just copy their txt values and make a dictionary...

Besides, I just want the country code to name lookup table, no other details...

Here's a copy of the dictionarys i've been trying to make but they have these annoying accent marks...

Thanks for the help in advance

short2long = {"AF":"Afghanistan",
"AX":"Aland Islands",
"AL":"Albania",
"DZ":"Algeria",
"AS":"American Samoa",
"AD":"Andorra",
"AO":"Angola",
"AI":"Anguilla",
"AQ":"Antarctica",
"AG":"Antigua and Barbuda",
"AR":"Argentina",
"AM":"Armenia",
"AW":"Aruba",
"AU":"Australia",
"AT":"Austria",
"AZ":"Azerbaijan",
"BS":"Bahamas",
"BH":"Bahrain",
"BD":"Bangladesh",
"BB":"Barbados",
"BY":"Belarus",
"BE":"Belgium",
"BZ":"Belize",
"BJ":"Benin",
"BM":"Bermuda",
"BT":"Bhutan",
"BO":"Bolivia, Plurinational State of",
"BQ":"Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba",
"BA":"Bosnia and Herzegovina",
"BW":"Botswana",
"BV":"Bouvet Island",
"BR":"Brazil",
"IO":"British Indian Ocean Territory",
"BN":"Brunei Darussalam",
"BG":"Bulgaria",
"BF":"Burkina Faso",
"BI":"Burundi",
"KH":"Cambodia",
"CM":"Cameroon",
"CA":"Canada",
"CV":"Cape Verde",
"KY":"Cayman Islands",
"CF":"Central African Republic",
"TD":"Chad",
"CL":"Chile",
"CN":"China",
"CX":"Christmas Island",
"CC":"Cocos (Keeling) Islands",
"CO":"Colombia",
"KM":"Comoros",
"CG":"Congo",
"CD":"Congo, The Democratic Republic of the",
"CK":"Cook Islands",
"CR":"Costa Rica",
"CI":"Côte d'Ivoire",
"HR":"Croatia",
"CU":"Cuba",
"CW":"Curaçao",
"CY":"Cyprus",
"CZ":"Czech Republic",
"DK":"Denmark",
"DJ":"Djibouti",
"DM":"Dominica",
"DO":"Dominican Republic",
"EC":"Ecuador",
"EG":"Egypt",
"SV":"El Salvador",
"GQ":"Equatorial Guinea",
"ER":"Eritrea",
"EE":"Estonia",
"ET":"Ethiopia",
"FK":"Falkland Islands (Malvinas)",
"FO":"Faroe Islands",
"FJ":"Fiji",
"FI":"Finland",
"FR":"France",
"GF":"French Guiana",
"PF":"French Polynesia",
"TF":"French Southern Territories",
"GA":"Gabon",
"GM":"Gambia",
"GE":"Georgia",
"DE":"Germany",
"GH":"Ghana",
"GI":"Gibraltar",
"GR":"Greece",
"GL":"Greenland",
"GD":"Grenada",
"GP":"Guadeloupe",
"GU":"Guam",
"GT":"Guatemala",
"GG":"Guernsey",
"GN":"Guinea",
"GW":"Guinea-Bissau",
"GY":"Guyana",
"HT":"Haiti",
"HM":"Heard Island and McDonald Islands",
"VA":"Holy See (Vatican City State)",
"HN":"Honduras",
"HK":"Hong Kong",
"HU":"Hungary",
"IS":"Iceland",
"IN":"India",
"ID":"Indonesia",
"IR":"Iran, Islamic Republic of",
"IQ":"Iraq",
"IE":"Ireland",
"IM":"Isle of Man",
"IL":"Israel",
"IT":"Italy",
"JM":"Jamaica",
"JP":"Japan",
"JE":"Jersey",
"JO":"Jordan",
"KZ":"Kazakhstan",
"KE":"Kenya",
"KI":"Kiribati",
"KP":"Korea, Democratic People's Republic of",
"KR":"Korea, Republic of",
"KW":"Kuwait",
"KG":"Kyrgyzstan",
"LA":"Lao People's Democratic Republic",
"LV":"Latvia",
"LB":"Lebanon",
"LS":"Lesotho",
"LR":"Liberia",
"LY":"Libya",
"LI":"Liechtenstein",
"LT":"Lithuania",
"LU":"Luxembourg",
"MO":"Macao",
"MK":"Macedonia, Republic of",
"MG":"Madagascar",
"MW":"Malawi",
"MY":"Malaysia",
"MV":"Maldives",
"ML":"Mali",
"MT":"Malta",
"MH":"Marshall Islands",
"MQ":"Martinique",
"MR":"Mauritania",
"MU":"Mauritius",
"YT":"Mayotte",
"MX":"Mexico",
"FM":"Micronesia, Federated States of",
"MD":"Moldova, Republic of",
"MC":"Monaco",
"MN":"Mongolia",
"ME":"Montenegro",
"MS":"Montserrat",
"MA":"Morocco",
"MZ":"Mozambique",
"MM":"Myanmar",
"NA":"Namibia",
"NR":"Nauru",
"NP":"Nepal",
"NL":"Netherlands",
"NC":"New Caledonia",
"NZ":"New Zealand",
"NI":"Nicaragua",
"NE":"Niger",
"NG":"Nigeria",
"NU":"Niue",
"NF":"Norfolk Island",
"MP":"Northern Mariana Islands",
"NO":"Norway",
"OM":"Oman",
"PK":"Pakistan",
"PW":"Palau",
"PS":"Palestinian Territory, Occupied",
"PA":"Panama",
"PG":"Papua New Guinea",
"PY":"Paraguay",
"PE":"Peru",
"PH":"Philippines",
"PN":"Pitcairn",
"PL":"Poland",
"PT":"Portugal",
"PR":"Puerto Rico",
"QA":"Qatar",
"RE":"Réunion",
"RO":"Romania",
"RU":"Russian Federation",
"RW":"Rwanda",
"BL":"Saint Barthélemy",
"SH":"Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha",
"KN":"Saint Kitts and Nevis",
"LC":"Saint Lucia",
"MF":"Saint Martin (French part)",
"PM":"Saint Pierre and Miquelon",
"VC":"Saint Vincent and the Grenadines",
"WS":"Samoa",
"SM":"San Marino",
"ST":"Sao Tome and Principe",
"SA":"Saudi Arabia",
"SN":"Senegal",
"RS":"Serbia",
"SC":"Seychelles",
"SL":"Sierra Leone",
"SG":"Singapore",
"SX":"Sint Maarten (Dutch part)",
"SK":"Slovakia",
"SI":"Slovenia",
"SB":"Solomon Islands",
"SO":"Somalia",
"ZA":"South Africa",
"GS":"South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands",
"ES":"Spain",
"LK":"Sri Lanka",
"SD":"Sudan",
"SR":"Suriname",
"SS":"South Sudan",
"SJ":"Svalbard and Jan Mayen",
"SZ":"Swaziland",
"SE":"Sweden",
"CH":"Switzerland",
"SY":"Syrian Arab Republic",
"TW":"Taiwan, Province of China",
"TJ":"Tajikistan",
"TZ":"Tanzania, United Republic of",
"TH":"Thailand",
"TL":"Timor-Leste",
"TG":"Togo",
"TK":"Tokelau",
"TO":"Tonga",
"TT":"Trinidad and Tobago",
"TN":"Tunisia",
"TR":"Turkey",
"TM":"Turkmenistan",
"TC":"Turks and Caicos Islands",
"TV":"Tuvalu",
"UG":"Uganda",
"UA":"Ukraine",
"AE":"United Arab Emirates",
"GB":"United Kingdom",
"US":"United States",
"UM":"United States Minor Outlying Islands",
"UY":"Uruguay",
"UZ":"Uzbekistan",
"VU":"Vanuatu",
"VE":"Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of",
"VN":"Viet Nam",
"VG":"Virgin Islands, British",
"VI":"Virgin Islands, U.S.",
"WF":"Wallis and Futuna",
"EH":"Western Sahara",
"YE":"Yemen",
"ZM":"Zambia",
"ZW":"Zimbabwe"}

I tried to use this code to build the dictionary

import pycountry

t = list(pycountry.countries)

for country in t:
    print '"' + country.alpha2 + '":"' + country.name + '",'

Answer 1

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import pycountry
cc={}
t = list(pycountry.countries)

for country in t:
    cc[country.alpha2]=country.name

print cc

cc will be the dictionary you're looking for.

Answer 2

Python source files default to the ASCII character encoding. If you want to include characters outside of this range in your source code, then you will need to declare the file's character encoding as described in PEP 0263. For example, adding the following line to the top of the file might do what you want (assuming the file is encoded in UTF-8):

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

This should cause the string objects to contain UTF-8 encoded versions of the country names. If you were using unicode string literals instead, then the non-ASCII characters would be decoded correctly too.