diff --git a/country.asm b/country.asm
index e331ceb..4b34d40 100644
--- a/country.asm
+++ b/country.asm
@@ -89,8 +89,12 @@
 ;
 ; See Matthias Paul's extensive COUNTRY.SYS documentation file: COUNTRY.LST
 ;
+; Country numeric codes closely correspond to international telephone codes
+; see https://github.com/google/libphonenumber for current country numbers
+; Note: historic ones follow MS-DOS conventions and may no longer exist
+;
 ; Standards used in this file:
-;   - ISO 3166-1: Country codes
+;   - ISO 3166-1: Country codes (2-alpha for comments only)
 ;     https://www.iso.org/iso-3166-country-codes.html
 ;   - ISO 639-1: Language codes
 ;     https://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php
@@ -363,6 +367,32 @@ YMD equ 2       ; Year-Month-Day (ISO format)
 _12 equ 0       ; 12-hour clock
 _24 equ 1       ; 24-hour clock
 
+;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+; INTERNAL HELPER MACRO: _bytes_len
+;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+; given a set of values, returns how many bytes they occupy
+;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+%macro _bytes_len 2-*  ; %1 is variable to assign # bytes to, rest are values
+    %assign %%total 0
+
+    %rep %0-1            ; iterate over all args except the first (the result name)
+        %rotate 1        ; bring next value into %1
+
+        ; if a string get how many bytes, otherwise assume numeric is db (1 byte)
+        %ifstr %1
+            %strlen %%n %1
+            %assign %%total %%total + %%n
+       %elifnum %1
+            %assign %%total %%total + 1
+        %else
+            %error bytes_len: argument is neither string nor number
+        %endif
+    %endrep
+
+    %rotate 1            ; restore original %1 (result_name) into %1
+    %1 equ %%total       ; “return” value as an assembly-time constant
+%endmacro
+
 ;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ; INTERNAL MACRO: _cnf_data
 ;-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@@ -380,6 +410,14 @@ _24 equ 1       ; 24-hour clock
     dw 0x26                     ; Length of data
 %endif
     dw %1, %2, %3               ; Country ID, Codepage, Date format
+; validate currency is an ASCIIZ string of at most 5 total bytes
+%if %8 != 0
+%warning "Warning: Currency must be ASCIIZ string, use 0 for padding bytes"
+%endif
+_bytes_len len_currency_ %+ %1 %+ _ %+ %2, %4, %5, %6, %7, %8
+%if (len_currency_ %+ %1 %+ _ %+ %2) != 5
+%error "Error: Currency exceeds 4 bytes and \0 terminator! Country:" %1 "Codepage:" %2
+%endif
     db %4, %5, %6, %7, %8       ; Currency symbol (5 bytes)
     db %9, 0, %10, 0            ; Thousands sep, Decimal sep
     db %11, 0, %12, 0           ; Date sep, Time sep
@@ -1059,10 +1097,10 @@ COUNTRY SET_ANGLO, 353, 858, en_collate_858, yn_yn, DMY, 0D5h,    0, 0, 0, 0, ",
 ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ; Iceland - Country Code 354
 ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 850, is_collate_850, yn_jn, DMY, "kr", 0, 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24 ; Ja / Nei
-COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 858, is_collate_858, yn_jn, DMY, "kr", 0, 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24
-COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 861, is_collate_861, yn_jn, DMY, "kr", 0, 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24
-COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 865, is_collate_865, yn_jn, DMY, "kr", 0, 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24
+COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 850, is_collate_850, yn_jn, DMY, "k", "r", 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24 ; Ja / Nei
+COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 858, is_collate_858, yn_jn, DMY, "k", "r", 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24
+COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 861, is_collate_861, yn_jn, DMY, "k", "r", 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24
+COUNTRY SET_NORDIC, 354, 865, is_collate_865, yn_jn, DMY, "k", "r", 0, 0, 0, ".", ",", ".", ":", 3, 0, _24
 
 ; ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 ; Albania - Country Code 355