What is an EAN?
EAN (or EAN-13) originally stood for "European Article Number," in the 70's though it has since been re-termed "GTIN-13: Global Trade Identification Number." It refers to the bar code system used outside of Canada and the United States. EAN's and UPC's that come from GS1-USA are essentially identical to one another except that an EAN contains 13 digits whereas a UPC has only 12. The extra digit makes up part of the country code and refers to where the bar code was registered. The country code has no bearing on where the product itself was manufactured.
Below is an EAN (GTIN-13) bar code image.
