Delegation and management
IANA is responsible for determining an appropriate trustee for each ccTLD. Administration and control are then delegated to that trustee, which is responsible for the policies and operation of the domain. The current delegation can be determined from IANA's list of ccTLDs. Individual ccTLDs may have varying requirements and fees for registering subdomains. There may be a local-presence requirement (for instance, citizenship or other connection to the ccTLD), as, for example, the United States, American (.us, us), Japan, Japanese (.jp, jp), Canada, Canadian (.ca, ca), France, French (.fr, fr) and Germany, German (.de, de) domains, or registration may be open.History
The first registered ccTLD was .us, which was registered in 1985. Later ccTLDs registered in that year included .uk and .il. Then, .au, .de, .fi, .fr, .is, .jp, .kr, .nl and .se were also registered in 1986. In 1987, .nz, .ch and .ca were registered. Later on, in 1988, .ie, .it, .es and .pt were also registered.Lists
As of 20 May 2017, there were 255 country-code top-level domains, purely in the Latin alphabet, using two-character codes. The number was 316 , with the addition of internationalized domains. The number is 308 .Latin Character ccTLDs
: ;Table Notes:Internationalized ccTLDs
; Table notes:Proposed internationalized ccTLDs
Internationalised domain names have been proposed for Japan and Libya.Relation to ISO 3166-1
Unused ISO 3166-1 codes
Almost all current ISO 3166-1 codes have been assigned and do exist in DNS. However, some of these are effectively unused. In particular, the ccTLDs for the Norwegian dependency Bouvet Island (.bv, bv) and the designation Svalbard and Jan Mayen (.sj, sj) do exist in DNS, but no subdomains have been assigned, and it is Norid policy to not assign any at present. Two France, French territories—.bl, bl (Saint Barthélemy) and .mf, mf (Saint Martin (France), Saint Martin)— await local assignment by France's government.
The code .eh, eh, although eligible as ccTLD for Western Sahara, has never been assigned and does not exist in Domain Name System, DNS. Only one subdomain is still registered in .gb, gb (ISO 3166-1 for the United Kingdom), and no new registrations are being accepted for it. Sites in the United Kingdom generally use .uk, uk (see below).
The former .um ccTLD for the United States Minor Outlying Islands, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands was removed in April 2008. Under RFC 1591 rules, .um is eligible as a ccTLD on request by the relevant governmental agency and local Internet user community.
ASCII ccTLDs not in ISO 3166-1
Several ASCII ccTLDs are in use that are not ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes. Some of these codes were specified in older versions of the ISO list. *.uk, uk (United Kingdom): The ISO 3166-1 code for the United Kingdom is GB. However, the JANET network had already selected uk as a top-level identifier for its pre-existing JANET NRS, Name Registration Scheme, and this was incorporated into the DNS root. .gb, gb was assigned with the intention of a transition, but this never occurred and the use of uk is now entrenched.
* .su, su This obsolete ISO 3166 code for the Soviet Union was assigned when the Soviet Union still existed; moreover, new su registrations are accepted.
* .ac, ac (Ascension Island): This code is a vestige of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, IANA's decision in 1996 to allow the use of codes reserved in the .gg, gg (Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey), .im, im (Isle of Man) and .je, je (Jersey) also fell under this category from 1996 until they received corresponding ISO 3166 codes in March 2006.)
* .eu, eu (European Union): On September 25, 2000, ICANN decided to allow the use of any two-letter code in the ISO 3166-1 reserve list that is reserved for all purposes. Only EU currently meets this criterion. Following a decision by the EU's Council of Telecommunications Ministers in March 2002, progress was slow, but a domain name registry, registry (named EURid) was chosen by the European Commission, and criteria for allocation set: ICANN approved .eu, eu as a ccTLD, and it opened for registration on 7 December 2005 for the holders of prior rights. Since 7 April 2006, registration is open to all in the European Economic Area.
Historical ccTLDs
ccTLDs may be removed if that country ceases to exist. There are three ccTLDs that have been deleted after the corresponding 2-letter code was withdrawn from ISO 3166-1:.cs, cs (for Czechoslovakia), .zr, zr (for Zaire) and .tp, tp (for East Timor). There may be a significant delay between withdrawal from ISO 3166-1 and deletion from the DNS; for example, ZR ceased to be an ISO 3166-1 code in 1997, but the zr ccTLD was not deleted until 2001. Other ccTLDs corresponding to obsolete ISO 3166-1 codes have not yet been deleted. In some cases they may never be deleted due to the amount of disruption this would cause for a heavily used ccTLD. In particular, the Soviet Union's ccTLD .su, su remains in use more than twenty years after SU was removed from ISO 3166-1.
The historical country codes .dd, dd for the German Democratic Republic and yd for South Yemen were eligible for a ccTLD, but not allocated; see also .de, de and .ye, ye.
The temporary reassignment of country code cs (Serbia and Montenegro) until its split into .rs, rs and .me, me (Serbia and Montenegro, respectively) led to some controversies about the stability of ISO 3166-1 country codes, resulting in a second edition of ISO 3166-1 in 2007 with a guarantee that retired codes will not be reassigned for at least 50 years, and the replacement of RFC 3066 by RFC 4646 for country codes used in language tags in 2006.
The previous ISO 3166-1 code for Yugoslavia, YU, was removed by ISO on 23 July 2003, but the .yu, yu ccTLD remained in operation. Finally, after a two-year transition to Serbian .rs, rs and Montenegrin .me, me, the .yu domain was phased out in March 2010.
Australia was originally assigned the .au#Historic second-level domains, oz country code, which was later changed to .au, au with the .oz domains moved to .oz.au.
Internationalized ccTLDs
AnGeneric ccTLDs
Generic Country Code Top-Level Domain or gccTLD refers to those TLDs which are technically "non-restricted ccTLDs" but used like traditional generic TLDs (gTLDs) rather than "country"-targeted ones. Most of the gccTLDs are primarily used as domain hacks:Unconventional usage
Lenient registration restrictions on certain ccTLDs have resulted in various domain hacks. Domain names such asI.am, tip.it, start.at and go.to form well-known English phrases, whereas others combine the second-level domain and ccTLD to form one word or one title, creating domains such as blo.gs of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands (.gs, gs), YouTube, youtu.be of Belgium (.be, be), Delicious (website), del.icio.us of the United States (.us, us), and cr.yp.to of Tonga (.to, to). The .co domain of Colombia has been cited since 2010 as a potential competitor to generic TLDs for commercial use, because it may be an abbreviation for ''company''.
Several ccTLDs allow the creation of emoji domains.
Some ccTLDs may also be used for typosquatting. The domain ''cm'' of Cameroon has generated interest due to the possibility that people might miss typing the letter ''o'' for sites in the ''com''.
Commercial use
Some of the world's smallest countries and non-sovereign or colonial entities with their own country codes have opened their TLDs for worldwide commercial use, some of them free like .tk.See also
* List of Internet top-level domains#Country code top-level domains, List of ccTLDs * Country code top-level domains with commercial licenses * Country code second-level domain * ISO 3166-1 alpha-2#Current codes, ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 assigned codes * Geographic top-level domain, a type of generic top-level domainNotes
References
External links
* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Country Code Top-Level Domain International telecommunications Top-level domains Country codes Domain Name System