Is there any significant reason why some ISBN numbers in books start with a 3 - when most start with 0 or 1?

Yes.





From website: What is the format of the ISBN?


Every ISBN consists of ten digits and whenever it is printed it is preceded by the letters ISBN. The ten-digit number is divided into four parts of variable length, each part separated by a hyphen.





Does the ISBN have any meaning imbedded in the numbers?


The four parts of an ISBN are as follows:


Group or country identifier which identifies a national or geographic grouping of publishers;


Publisher identifier which identifies a particular publisher within a group;


Title identifier which identifies a particular title or edition of a title;


Check digit is the single digit at the end of the ISBN which validates the ISBN.





I just listed a book that begins with a 3 - it was printed in Germany.





ISBNs are now 10 OR 13 numbers. Guess they were running out. You can check the site below for more info.|||The first number is the country the book was published in. I believe 0 is England|||http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isbn|||Like bar codes, the first digit represents the country of production or, in this case, publication.


0 is UK, maybe 1 is US as that's the telephone code??!!


On bar codes, 3 is for France....