The impact of decolonisation and independence on aircraft registration schemes has varied from place to place. Most countries, upon independence, have had a new allocation granted – in most cases this is from the new country's new ITU allocation, but neither is it uncommon for the new country to be allocated a subset of their former colonial power's allocation. For example, after partition in 1947, India retained the VT designation it had received as part of the British Empire's Vx series allocation, while Pakistan adopted the AP designation from the newly allocated ITU callsigns APA-ASZ. When this happens it is usually the case that aircraft will be re-registered into the new series retaining as much of the suffix as is possible. For example, when in 1929 the British Dominions at the time established their own aircraft registers, marks were reallocated as follows: Canada: G-Cxxx to CF-xxx, then expanded to C-Fxxx, C-Gxxx, and then C-Ixxx in 1974. Australia: G-AUxx to VH-Uxx, then immediately expanded to all VH-xxx marks. As of 2022, the last three (3) characters will include numerals, e.g. VH-8AA. New Zealand: G-NZxx to ZK-Zxx, then immediately expanded to all ZK-xxx marks. Newfoundland: G-Cxxx (with Canada) to VO-xxx, then re-merged with the Canadian register in 1949 to CF-xxx. South Africa: G-UAxx to ZU-Axx, then expanded to all ZU-xxx marks, then again to current ZS-xxx, ZT-Rxx, and ZU-xxx allocations. Hong Kong: VR-Hxx to B-HAA - B-HZZ/B-KAA - B-KZZ/B-LAA - B-LZZ after 1997. Two oddities created by this reallocation process are the current formats used by the Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and Macau, both of which were returned to PRC control from Britain in 1997 and Portugal in 1999 respectively. Hong Kong's prefix of VR-H and Macau's of CS-M, both subdivisions of their colonial powers' allocations, were replaced by China's B- prefix without the registration mark being extended, leaving aircraft from both SARs with registration marks of only four characters, as opposed to the norm of five. Registration prefixes and patterns by countries See also Aircraft lease List of aircraft registration prefixes Belgian aircraft registration and serials List of aircraft by tail number ITU prefix United Kingdom aircraft registration United Kingdom military aircraft serial numbers United States military aircraft serials United States military tail code References External links Searchable worldwide registration database Aruba Aircraft Register Australian Aircraft Register Austrian Aircraft Register Belgian Aircraft Register Brazilian