This list of Internet top-level domains (TLD) contains
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 ...
s, which are those domains in the
DNS root zone
The DNS root zone is the top-level DNS zone in the hierarchical namespace of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.
Before October 1, 2016, the root zone had been overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ...
of the
Domain Name System
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
of 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, pub ...
. A list of the top-level domains by the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is a standards organization that oversees global IP address allocation, autonomous system number allocation, root zone management in the Domain Name System (DNS), media types, and other Interne ...
(IANA) is maintained at the Root Zone Database.
IANA also oversees the approval process for new
proposed top-level domain
The Domain Name System of the Internet consists of a set of top-level domains that constitute the root domain of the hierarchical name space and database. In the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to expand the initial set of six generic ...
s for
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 ...
. , their root domain contains 1502 top-level domains.
, the IANA root database includes 1589 TLDs. That also includes 68 that are not assigned (revoked), 8 that are retired and 11
test domains.
Those are not represented in IANA's listing
and are not in root.zone file (root.zone file also includes one
root domain
The DNS root zone is the top-level DNS zone in the hierarchical namespace of the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet.
Before October 1, 2016, the root zone had been overseen by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ...
).
Types
IANA distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains:
*
infrastructure 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 ...
(ARPA)
*
generic top-level domain
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of eve ...
s (gTLD)
* generic-restricted top-level domains (grTLD)
*
sponsored top-level domain A sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) is one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet, alongside country-code top-level domains (ccTLD) ...
s (sTLD)
*
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 t ...
s (ccTLD)
*
test top-level domains (tTLD)
Original top-level domains
Seven generic top-level domains were created early in the development of the Internet, and predate the creation of
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 ...
in 1998.
* Name: DNS names
* Entity: intended use
* Notes: general remarks
* IDN: support for
internationalized domain names
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...
(IDN)
* DNSSEC: presence of DS records for
Domain Name System Security Extensions
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...
Infrastructure top-level domains
Country code top-level domains
As of 20 May 2017, there were 255
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 t ...
s, purely in the Latin alphabet, using two-character codes. , the number was 316, with the addition of internationalized domains.
Proposed internationalized ccTLDs
Internationalised domain names have been proposed for
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and
Libya
Libya (; ar, ليبيا, Lībiyā), officially the State of Libya ( ar, دولة ليبيا, Dawlat Lībiyā), is a country in the Maghreb region in North Africa. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to Egypt–Libya bo ...
.
ICANN-era generic top-level domains
* Name: DNS name
* Target market: intended use
* Restrictions: restrictions, if any, on who can register, and how the domain can be used
* Operator: entity the registry has been delegated to
* IDN: support for
internationalized domain names
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...
(IDN)
* DNSSEC: presence of DS records for
Domain Name System Security Extensions
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...
English
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Chinese
French
German
Hindi
Italian
Portuguese
Spanish
Internationalized generic top-level domains
All of these TLDs are
internationalized domain names
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...
(IDN) and support second-level IDNs.
* Notes: general remarks and intended use
* DNSSEC: presence of DS records for
Domain Name System Security Extensions
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...
Arabic script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
Japanese characters
Other script
Geographic top-level domains
* Name: DNS name
* Entity: Target geographic area
* Notes: general remarks
* IDN: support for
internationalized domain names
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...
(IDN)
* DNSSEC: presence of DS records for
Domain Name System Security Extensions
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...
Africa
Asia
Europe
North America
Oceania
South America
Internationalized geographic top-level domains
Brand top-level domains
* Name: DNS name
* Entity: company and/or brand
* Notes: general remarks
* IDN: support for
internationalized domain names
An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains at least one label displayed in software applications, in whole or in part, in non-latin script or alphabet, such as Arabic, Bengali, Chinese (Mandarin, simplified ...
(IDN)
* DNSSEC: presence of DS records for
Domain Name System Security Extensions
The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) are a suite of extension specifications by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) for securing data exchanged in the Domain Name System (DNS) in Internet Protocol (IP) networks. The protocol ...
Internationalized brand top-level domains
Special-Use Domains
ICANN/IANA has created some Special-Use domain names which are meant for special technical purposes. ICANN/IANA owns all of the Special-Use domain names.
Non-IANA domains
Besides the TLDs managed (or at least tracked) by IANA or ICANN, other independent groups have created, or had attempted to create, their own TLDs with varying technical specifications, functions, and outcomes.
Blockchain-registered
Blockchain-based domains are registered and exchanged using a public
blockchain
A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...
like
Ethereum
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...
. Often times, these domains serve specific functions such as creating
human-readable
A human-readable medium or human-readable format is any encoding of data or information that can be naturally read by humans.
In computing, ''human-readable'' data is often encoded as ASCII or Unicode text, rather than as binary data. In most c ...
references to
smart contract
A smart contract is a computer program or a transaction protocol that is intended to automatically execute, control or document events and actions according to the terms of a contract or an agreement. The objectives of smart contracts are the re ...
addresses used in
DApp
A decentralised application (DApp, dApp, Dapp, or dapp) is an application that can operate autonomously, typically through the use of smart contracts, that run on a decentralized computing, blockchain or other distributed ledger system. Like ...
s or personal
wallet addresses.
Generally, these non-standard domains are unreachable through the normal DNS resolution process and instead require clients to use some sort of transparent web proxy or gateway to access them
Alternate roots
In the case of
alternative DNS root
The Internet uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to associate numeric computer IP addresses with human-readable names. The top level of the domain name hierarchy, the DNS root, contains the top-level domains that appear as the suffixes of all Interne ...
s, organizations or projects make use of the same mechanisms of the DNS but instead take on the role of ICANN in managing and administering an entirely separate root zone, thus having the ability to create new TLDs independently. However, this doesn't make these domains any less isolated from the rest of the internet, though the ability for clients to resolve them theoretically only requires switching to a
recursive DNS resolver
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...
that recognizes and serves records underneath the alternate root zone.
See also
*
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 t ...
*
Generic top-level domain
Generic top-level domains (gTLDs) are one of the categories of top-level domains (TLDs) maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet. A top-level domain is the last level of eve ...
*
IDN Test TLDs
*
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2
ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes are two-letter country codes defined in ISO 3166-1, part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), to represent countries, dependent territories, and special areas of ...
, the standard for two-letter country codes, which most ccTLDs are based on
*
Proposed top-level domain
The Domain Name System of the Internet consists of a set of top-level domains that constitute the root domain of the hierarchical name space and database. In the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to expand the initial set of six generic ...
*
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 ...
, information about .co.jp, .co.uk, .co.kr, .co.nf, etc.
*
Public Suffix List The Public Suffix List (PSL) is a catalog of certain Internet domain names. Entries on the list are also referred to as effective top-level domains (eTLD).
The Mozilla Foundation initiated the suffix list for the security and privacy policies of its ...
Explanatory notes
Citations
External links
IANA's list of TLDs in machine-readable format
The Internet Domain SurveyThe Public Suffix List / PSL – Maintained by MozillaRegistry Agreementsat
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 ...
Registry Agreement Termination Info Pageat
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 ...
{{Generic top-level domains
Country codes
International telecommunications
Top-level domains
Top-level domains
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 ...