.za is the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes ( geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the 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 root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

(

ccTLD 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 t ...

) for

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring count ...

. The .za namespace is managed and regulated by the .za Domain Name Authority (ZADNA). Most domains are registered under the

second-level domain In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a second-level domain (SLD or 2LD) is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in , is the second-level domain of the TLD. Second-level domains commonly refer to the organ ...

.co.za. ZA is an abbreviation of the Dutch name for the country: ''Zuid-Afrika''.

Management

None of the official names for South Africa can be abbreviated to ZA, which is an abbreviation of the Dutch ''Zuid-Afrika''. Dutch was considered an official language in the

Union of South Africa The Union of South Africa ( nl, Unie van Zuid-Afrika; af, Unie van Suid-Afrika; ) was the historical predecessor to the present-day Republic of South Africa. It came into existence on 31 May 1910 with the unification of the Cape, Natal, Tr ...

until 1961; it subsequently lost its

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

ous status with

Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...

in 1983. ''Suid-Afrika'' is the standard spelling in Afrikaans, but the .sa domain is used by

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the Arab ...

. ''Zuid-Afrika'' has a history of usage: the international vehicle code for South Africa has been "ZA" since 1936. ''ZAR'' serves as the

ISO 4217 ISO 4217 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies and provides information about the relationships between individual ...

currency code for the

South African rand The South African rand, or simply the rand, ( sign: R; code: ZAR) is the official currency of the Southern African Common Monetary Area: South Africa, Namibia (alongside the Namibian dollar), Lesotho (alongside the Lesotho loti) and Eswatini ...

. South African

aircraft registration An aircraft registration is a code unique to a single aircraft, required by international convention to be marked on the exterior of every civil aircraft. The registration indicates the aircraft's country of registration, and functions much lik ...

prefixes also start with ''Z''.

Second-level domains

.ZA has a Second Level Domain (SLD) Structure.

Approved

* .ac.za: South African academic and tertiary societies * .co.za: general use by South African and non-South African persons and entities * .edu.za: South African further education training and private colleges * .gov.za: South African government & its departments and entities * .law.za: South African legal firms * .mil.za: South African Department of Defence & its institutions * .net.za: primarily for network & internet infrastructure providers * .nom.za: personal names, not organisations * .org.za: primarily for South African non-commercial entities. * .school.za: for schools in South Africa ** .ecape.school.za:

Eastern Cape The Eastern Cape is one of the provinces of South Africa. Its capital is Bhisho, but its two largest cities are East London and Gqeberha. The second largest province in the country (at 168,966 km2) after Northern Cape, it was formed in ...

** .fs.school.za: Free State ** .gp.school.za:

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

** .kzn.school.za:

Kwazulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is loc ...

** .mpm.school.za:

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. ...

** .ncape.school.za:

Northern Cape The Northern Cape is the largest and most sparsely populated province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley. It includes the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park, part of the Kgalagadi ...

** .lp.school.za:

Limpopo Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. It is named after the Limpopo River, which forms the province's western and northern borders. The capital and largest city in the province is Polokwane, while the provincial legislature ...

** .nw.school.za: North West ** .wcape.school.za:

Western Cape The Western Cape is a province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , and the third most populous, with an estimated 7 million inhabitants in 2020 ...

* .web.za: general use by South Africans & non–South Africans

Dormant

* .alt.za: Historical registrants * .ngo.za: for non-governmental organisations. New registrations pending .za DNA public consultation process * .tm.za: for

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from o ...

s. On hold pending establishment of the .ZA DNA

Private

* .agric.za: ARC & Company * .grondar.za: Mark R V Murray * .nis.za: Network Information Systems

Former (deleted)

ZADNA removed a number of domains from the .za zone on 7 August 2009: * .bourse.za: for all companies which are listed on the JSE Securities Exchange * .city.za: for municipal governments * .cybernet.za: Infront Investments Five cc * .db.za: De Beers * .iaccess.za: Compustat * .imt.za: Institute for Maritime Technology * .inca.za: Internetworking Cape * .landesign.za: Lan Design (no longer exists) * .olivetti.za:

Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been part o ...

/Mark Elkins * .pix.za: Proxima Information Exchange

Statistics

Currently around 29.39% of the .za internet is served via secured HTTPS protocol, with the Let's Encrypt Authority X3 being the most popular SSL certificate. Apache is the most popular web server, serving 66.56% of the .za domains, followed by Microsoft-IIS serving 11.60% of the total .za domains. The most common 1st character in domain names is "c", with 10.76% of .za domains starting with this character.

References

External links

ZADNA website

{{DEFAULTSORT:ZA Country code top-level domains Internet in South Africa Computer-related introductions in 1990 sv:Toppdomän#Z