.la is the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
country code top-level domain
A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all tw ...
(ccTLD) for
Laos
Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...
.
Although the .la domain is officially assigned to the country of Laos, subdomains have been delegated to some organizations outside Laos.
History
The LA Names Corporation, based in
Guernsey
Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...
, has gained the rights to market .la registrations, and they had used the registry services of
Afilias
Afilias, Inc. was a US corporation that was the registry operator of the .info, .mobi and .pro top-level domain, service provider for registry operators of .org, .ngo, .lgbt, .asia, .aero, and a provider of domain name registry services f ...
and, formerly, the registrar services of
DreamHost. However, DreamHost has discontinued .la registrar services . LA Names and CentralNic, Ltd. completed the transfer of the .la domain name to the
CentralNic
Team Internet Group PLC (formerly named CentralNic Group PLC) is a British multinational internet services holding company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its subsidiaries provide services categorized in two segments: Online Marketing an ...
system in 2007. Cabel Sasser of
Panic
Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and frantic agitation consistent with a fight-or-flight reaction. ...
created "Poopla" (xn--ls8h.la), "The World's First
Emoji Domain" on April 13, 2011. A company based in of Hong Kong by the name of Sterling Holdings originally purchased the
TLD
A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domain name, domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the DNS root zone, root zone of the nam ...
from Laos, and marketed it towards users in Louisiana and Los Angeles.
Popular use
The domain is used by organizations in the state of
Louisiana
Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...
(whose
postal abbreviation is LA) and the city of
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
.
No official or unofficial association exists between the .la domain and any government in the United States (see
.gov and
.org). It also sees limited use for businesses in
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
, such as
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...
's site for the region.
The .la domain is also used for
domain hack
A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, and , using the domains ''.bot'' and ''.le'', suggest the words ''robot'' and ''example'' respective ...
s in the
French language
French ( or ) is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European family. Like all other Romance languages, it descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. French evolved from Northern Old Gallo-R ...
and the
Chinese language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39& ...
. ' means "there" in French and in Italian, and in other
Romance languages
The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
; "" () is a common
modal word
Modal words are words in a language that express modality, i.e., possibility, necessity, or contingency. One kind of modal word is the modal verb
A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''abi ...
at the end of a sentence or a phrase in
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
and
Cantonese
Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...
.
Mozilla Foundation
The Mozilla Foundation is an American non-profit organization that exists to support and collectively lead the Open-source software, open source Mozilla project. Founded in July 2003, the organization sets the policies that govern development, ...
's
URL shortener uses it with the "mzl.la" domain hack.
Tesla Motors
Tesla, Inc. ( or ) is an American multinational automotive and clean energy company. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, it designs, manufactures and sells battery electric vehicles (BEVs), stationary battery energy storage devices from hom ...
uses "ts.la" domain hack as a shortener and a
redirect
Redirect and its variants (e.g., redirection) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Redirect (album), ''Redirect'' (album), 2012 Christian metal album and its title track by Your Memorial
* Redirected (film), ''Redirected'' (film), a 20 ...
.
Digikala, an e-commerce startup in
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
and the Middle East uses the "dgka.la" domain hack as a shortener.
The
Network information center of .la is oriented to pages based in Los Angeles.
The
Digital Public Library of America
The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) is a US project aimed at providing public access to digital holdings in order to create a large-scale public digital library. It officially launched on April 18, 2013, after two-and-a-half years of dev ...
uses dp.la.
In
Toki Pona
Toki Pona (; , , translated as 'the language of good') is a Philosophical language, philosophical, Artistic language, artistic, constructed language designed for its small vocabulary, simplicity, and ease of acquisition. It was created by Canadia ...
, the word ''la'' is used as a context marker. Therefore, many popular Toki Pona websites use the ".la" domain, such as ''sona pona'', an English wiki about Toki Pona, and ''lipu Linku'', a Toki Pona dictionary.
Lao language domain
In 2008 a preliminary application was made to open the
internationalized top level domain (the name of Laos in the
Lao language
Lao (Lao: , ), sometimes referred to as Laotian, is the official language of Laos and a significant language in the Isan region of northeastern Thailand, where it is usually referred to as the Isan language. Spoken by over 3 million people in ...
).
IDN ccTLD Form of Interest , Laos
/ref> In 2019 this top level domain was approved. Web sites will come at a later stage. It is intended for usage with domain names
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. D ...
in Lao script
Lao script or Akson Lao ( ) is the primary script used to write the Lao language and other languages in Laos. Its earlier form, the Tai Noi script, was also used to write the Isan language, but was replaced by the Thai script. It has 27 co ...
.
References
External links
IANA .la whois information
{{DEFAULTSORT:La
Communications in Laos
Country code top-level domains
sv:Toppdomän#L