.cn is the country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for the People's Republic of China introduced on 28 November 1990. Domain name administration in mainland China is managed through a branch of the Ministry of Industry and Information. The registry is maintained by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Entities connected to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan often use

.hk .hk is the designated Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Hong Kong. It is administered by the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation (HKIRC), the only organization endorsed by the Hong Kong Government to undertake the adminis ...

.mo :''.mo can also refer to the file extension of binary files that have been compiled from .po files using GNU gettext.'' .mo is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Macau, China. The registry for this domain name is operated b ...

.tw .tw is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Taiwan. The domain name is based on the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code TW. The registry is maintained by the Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), a Taiwanese non-profit org ...

respectively, despite their corresponding second-level domains under .cn available for those regions. The Chinese script internationalized country codes are ".中国" (Simplified Chinese) and ".中國" (Traditional Chinese): both have been reserved but the former is more in line with present-day mainland Chinese orthography.

Second-level domains

Any individual may register for second-level domain names. However, the registry has created a set of predefined second-level domains for certain types of organizations and geographic locations. Registrations for such third-level domains were available before second-level domains became available in 2003, and registrants of third-level domains were given priority for names at the second level.

Generic second-level domains

* ''ac''.cn : Academic and research institutions * ''com''.cn : Industrial, commercial, financial enterprises and individuals * ''edu''.cn : Educational institutions (usually universities and colleges) * ''gov''.cn : Government departments (both central and local governments) * ''mil''.cn : Military organizations * ''net''.cn : Networks, NICs and NOCs * ''org''.cn : Non-profit organizations

Second-level domains of provinces

The two-letter abbreviations are the same as those found in the People's Republic of China National Standards "Codes for the administrative divisions of the People's Republic of China (GB/T 2260-2002)." * ''ah''.cn : Anhui Province * ''bj''.cn :

Beijing Municipality } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

* ''cq''.cn : Chongqing Municipality * ''fj''.cn : Fujian Province * ''gd''.cn :

Guangdong Province Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

* ''gs''.cn : Gansu Province * ''gz''.cn : Guizhou Province * ''gx''.cn : Guangxi Province * ''ha''.cn : Henan Province * ''hb''.cn : Hubei Province * ''he''.cn : Hebei Province * ''hi''.cn :

Hainan Province Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

* ''hl''.cn : Heilongjiang Province * ''hk''.cn : Hong Kong Special Administrative Region **

is more commonly used * ''hn''.cn :

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi t ...

* ''jl''.cn : Jilin Province * ''js''.cn :

Jiangsu Province Jiangsu (; ; pinyin: Jiāngsū, alternatively romanized as Kiangsu or Chiangsu) is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its ca ...

* ''jx''.cn :

Jiangxi Province Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north into hi ...

* ''ln''.cn :

Liaoning Province Liaoning () is a coastal provinces of China, province in Northeast China that is the smallest, southernmost, and most populous province in the region. With its capital at Shenyang, it is located on the northern shore of the Yellow Sea, and i ...

* ''mo''.cn : Macau Special Administrative Region **

is more commonly used * ''nm''.cn :

Nei Mongol Autonomous Region Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts f ...

* ''nx''.cn : Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region * ''qh''.cn : Qinghai Province * ''sc''.cn : Sichuan Province * ''sd''.cn :

Shandong Province Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizatio ...

* ''sh''.cn :

Shanghai Municipality Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

* ''sn''.cn : Shaanxi Province * ''sx''.cn : Shanxi Province * ''tj''.cn : Tianjin Municipality * ''tw''.cn : Taiwan Province **

is more commonly used * ''xj''.cn : Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region * ''xz''.cn :

Xizang Autonomous Region The Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, often shortened to Tibet or Xizang, is a province-level autonomous region of the People's Republic of China in Southwest China. It was overlayed on the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü ...

* ''yn''.cn : Yunnan Province * ''zj''.cn :

Zhejiang Province Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Jiangs ...

Internationalized domain names with Chinese characters

Internationalized domain names with Chinese characters may be registered at the second level under the .cn

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 ...

. On 25 June 2010,

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is an American multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces ...

approved the use of the internationalized country code top-level domains ".中国" (''China'' in simplified Chinese characters, DNS name ''xn--fiqs8s'') and ".中國" (''China'' in traditional Chinese characters, DNS name ''xn--fiqz9s'') by CNNIC. These two TLDs were added to the DNS in July 2010. CNNIC proposed around this time Chinese domain names in ".公司" (".com" in Chinese) and ".网络" (".net" in Chinese). However, these have not been recognized by

yet and are only available via domestic

domain name registrar A domain name registrar is a company that manages the reservation of Internet domain names. A domain name registrar must be accredited by a generic top-level domain (gTLD) registry or a country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry. A registrar ...

s. Around 15 other generic domain names with Chinese characters have later been registered. See List of Internet top-level domains#Chinese characters.

References

Provisional Administrative Rules for Registration of Domain Names in China

External links