Language Page Folder Name - Best Practice

The best practice for naming foreign language folder pages

[Tarquin]

We are launching some new foreign language pages on our website, and would like to get feedback on the best practice for naming the folders?

For example:
yoursite.com/cn
yoursite.com/china

or
yoursite.com/de
yoursite.com/germany

Which is better, the country name, or the abbreviation?

[phranque]

are you targeting language or locale?

[Tom_Cash]

Personally, I'd do it like the big players, ie, Apple etc and use the country codes:

example.com/de
example.com/gb
example.com/cn
example.com/za

Etc.... Personally...

[leadegroot]

Well, you want a consistent schema, so you aren't sometimes using language and sometimes using country, but I think the biggest issue to consider is 'how are you handling variants of language spoken in different countries?'
eg spanish - spain and parts of south america
french - france and parts of canada.

Answering that should tell you how your scheme should work

(but copying the big boys is indeed a decent fallback. If nothing else, the punters are used to it !)