.hk is the

country code A country code is a short alphanumeric identification code for countries and dependent areas. Its primary use is in data processing and communications. Several identification systems have been developed. The term ''country code'' frequently re ...

top-level domain 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 ...

(

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 tw ...

) for the

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a Special administrative regions of China, special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the List of ...

. Introduced on 3 January 1990, it is administered by the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation (HKIRC).

History

From the introduction of the domain in 1990 to 2002, the domain was administered by the Joint University Computer Centre, which was incorporated in 1970 as a cooperative consortium of the information technology service centers of the eight government-funded tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. During this period, the

Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public university, public research university in Sha Tin, New Territories, Hong Kong. Established in 1963 as a federation of three university college, collegesChung Chi College, New Asia Coll ...

was responsible for technical support, the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is a public research university in Pokfulam, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese by the London Missionary Society and formally established as the University of ...

coordinated fees, and the

Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU or HKPU) is a public research university in Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. The university is one of the eight government-funded degree-granting tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. Founded in 1937 a ...

was responsible for maintaining the accounts. In 2002, by a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation (HKIRC) took over the administration of from the Joint University Computer Centre. The Hong Kong Domain Name Registration Corporation Limited (HKDNR), a wholly owned subsidiary of HKIRC, is responsible for the day-to-day management of the domain registration service.

Domains

".hk" domain names can be registered at both the second and third level. All domain names could contain

alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are any collection of number characters and letters in a certain language. Sometimes such characters may be mistaken one for the other. Merriam-Webster suggests that the term "alphanumeric" may often ...

characters and

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...

Internationalized domains

A Chinese domain name must include at least one Chinese character but may also contain English letters. In contrast, an English domain name cannot contain any Chinese characters. Since mid-January 2011, Chinese domain names with the ".hk" extension (but not those ending in ".香港") have been unavailable for registration. Domains already registered under these categories can still be used and renewed. On 25 June 2010,

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

approved the use of the

internationalized country code top-level domain An internationalized country code top-level domain is a top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet. IDN ccTLDs are specially encoded domain names that are displayed in an end user application, such as a web browser, in the ...

() by HKIRC. This TLD was added to the DNS on 12 July 2010. The pre-launch priority registration for was started on 22 February 2011. The first domain was activated on 23 March 2011. domain categories were opened for public registration since 31 May 2011.

Notes

References

External links