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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 their language-native script or alphabet, such as the Arabic alphabet, or a non-alphabetic writing system, such as Chinese characters. IDN ccTLDs are an application of the internationalized domain name system to top-level Internet domains assigned to countries, or independent geographic regions.
Although the domain class uses the term code, some of these ccTLDs are not codes but full words. For example, السعودية (as-Suʻūdiyya) is not an abbreviation of "Saudi Arabia", but the commonwealth short-form name of the country in Arabic.
Countries with internationalized ccTLDs also retain their traditional ASCII-based ccTLDs.
As of August 2018 there are 59 approved internationalized country code top-level domains, of them at least 47 used. The most used are .рф (the Russian Federation) with over 900,000 domains names, .台灣 (Taiwan) with around 500,000 and .中国 (China) with over 200,000 domains. [1] Still as of 2018 around 20 countries using non-Latin script do not have an internationalized country code top-level domain, including Japan.
The ICANN board approved the establishment of an internationalized top-level domain name working group within the Country Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO) in December 2006. [2] They resolved in June 2007 inter alia to proceed and asked the IDNC Working Group to prepare a proposal, which the group delivered in June 2008, "to recommend mechanisms to introduce a limited number of non-contentious IDN ccTLDs, associated with the ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes in a short time frame to meet near term demand." The group proposed a methodology using ICANN's Fast Track Process [3] based on the ICANN charter to work with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
In October 2009, ICANN resolved to start accepting applications for top-level internationalized domain names from representatives of countries and territories in November. [4] Starting 16 November 2009, nations and territories could apply for IDN ccTLDs. [5] Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Russian Federation were among the first countries to apply for the new internationalized domain name country code top-level domains. In January 2010 ICANN announced that these countries' IDN ccTLDs were the first four new IDN ccTLDs to have passed the Fast Track String Evaluation within the domain application process. [6] In May 2010, twenty-one different countries representing eleven languages, including Chinese, Russian, Tamil, and Thai, had requested new IDN country codes. [7]
On 5 May 2010, the first implementations, all in the Arabic alphabet, were activated. [8] Egypt was assigned the مصر. country code, Saudi Arabia السعودية., and the United Arab Emirates امارات., (all reading right to left as is customary in Arabic). [7] [8] ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom described the launch as "historic" and "a seismic shift that will forever change the online landscape." [9] "This is the beginning of a transition that will make the Internet more accessible and user friendly to millions around the globe, regardless of where they live or what language they speak," he added. [9] Senior director for internationalised domain names Tina Dam said it was "the most significant day" since the launch of the Internet. [7] According to ICANN, Arabic was chosen for the initial roll out because it is one of the most widely used non-Latin languages on the Internet. [9] There are problems entering a mixed left-to-right and right-to-left text string on a keyboard, making fully Arabic web addresses extra useful.
Additional IDN ccTLDs had been implemented by the end of June 2010: one using Cyrillic, .рф (for Russia), and five using Chinese characters (the first using a non-alphabetical writing system) approved by the ICANN board on 25 June 2010: [10] [11]
.中国 (encoded as ".xn--fiqs8s") and .中國 (encoded as ".xn--fiqz9s"; ".zhongguo "), delegated to China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the registrar for ccTLD .cn ; .香港 (encoded as ".xn--j6w193g"; ".hongkong"), delegated to Hong Kong Internet Registration Corporation (HKIRC), the registrar for ccTLD .hk ; .台灣 (encoded as ".xn--kpry57d") and .台湾 (encoded as ".xn--kprw13d"; ".taiwan"), delegated to Taiwan Network Information Center (TWNIC), the registrar for ccTLD .tw .The dual domains delegated to each of CNNIC and TWNIC are synonymous, being purely orthographical variations differing only in using simplified forms (国 and 湾), as preferred in mainland China, versus traditional forms of the same characters (國 and 灣), as used in Taiwan. [12] [13]
The new country codes were available for immediate use, although ICANN admit they may not work properly for all users initially. [7] According to Egypt's communication and information technology minister, three Egyptian companies were the first to receive domain licenses on the new "masr" [مصر transliterated] country code. [7] Egypt's Ministry of Communications was possibly the first functional website with an entirely Arabic address. [7] The ccTLD .рф for Russia launched on 13 May. Bulgaria's .бг was rejected by the ICANN due to its visual similarity with .br . .бг was eventually approved in 2014.
The Ukrainian string .укр was approved by the ICANN Board on 28 February 2013. The zone was added to the root servers on March 19, 2013. [14] The Bulgarian string .бг was rejected a second time in March 2011 but was approved by the ICANN Board in 2014, and the Greek .ελ string in 2015, both after controversies about possibilities of confusion with existing Latin strings. India has applied for top-level domains in each of its local scripts, at first seven, later eight more. The first one, .भारत, was approved 2011 and became active in 2014. The general flow of applications has ceased after 2016.
The Pakistan string پاکستان. was approved by the ICANN BOARD on 7 January 2011 to represent Pakistan in Arabic script. On 4 February 2017, IDN ccTLD پاکستان. was delegated to the National Telecommunication Corporation and the zone was added to the root servers on February 15, 2017.
The European Union applied in 2016 for the Cyrillic domain .ею and the Greek domain .ευ. ею was approved and put into operation, but ευ was rejected as being too similar to .eu also belonging to the European Union. In 2019 ευ was approved on the condition that the same registry organisation EURid own both, and makes sure two equal or equally looking second-level domains are not registered in both ccTLD. Second-level domains under eu, ею and ευ shall have same script as the ccTLD (older Greek or Cyrillic domains under .eu got cloned into the new domain, but kept under .eu)
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 lower levels, it is the last part of the domain name, that is, the last non empty label of a fully qualified domain name. For example, in the domain name www.example.com, the top-level domain is .com. Responsibility for management of most top-level domains is delegated to specific organizations by the ICANN, an Internet multi-stakeholder community, which operates the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone.
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, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Tamil or Thai or in the Latin alphabet-based characters with diacritics or ligatures, such as French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese or Spanish. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multibyte Unicode. Internationalized domain names are stored in the Domain Name System (DNS) as ASCII strings using Punycode transcription.
.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, .mo, .tw respectively, despite their corresponding second-level domains under .cn available for those regions. The Chinese script internationalized country codes are ".中国" and ".中國" : both have been reserved but the former is more in line with present-day mainland Chinese orthography.
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 two-letter top-level domains are ccTLDs.
.ae is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet for the United Arab Emirates. It is administered by .aeDA which is part of the Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority of UAE (TDRA).
.sa is the Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of Saudi Arabia. Domains of this type can be registered through SaudiNIC, a department of the Communications and Information Technology Commission. The Arabic alphabet ccTLD of Saudi Arabia is السعودية.
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 every fully qualified domain name. They are called generic for historical reasons; initially, they were contrasted with country-specific TLDs in RFC 920.
.il is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) of Israel, administered by the Israel Internet Association and managed by NIC - ISRAEL, which hosts the DNS root server and manages the Israeli Internet Exchange, that supports IPv4 and IPv6.
.sg is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Singapore. It was first registered in September 1988. It is administered by the Singapore Network Information Centre. Registrations are processed via accredited registrars.
.eg is the Latin alphabet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Egypt. Any entity who wants to register a domain name ending with .eg must have a local representative or the domain name has to be hosted on Egyptian DNS servers. Egypt's Arabic alphabet ccTLD is .مصر.
.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 organization appointed by the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the Ministry of Transportation and Communication. Since 1 March 2001, TWNIC has stopped allowing itself to sign up new domain names directly, instead allowing new registration through its contracted reseller registrars.
.ir is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Iran. It is managed by the Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences.
.pk is the designated Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Pakistan. PKNIC is the only organization endorsed by the Government of Pakistan to undertake the administration of 'pk' domain names. PKNIC is a non-profit making, non-statutory, member-based corporation established in June 1992.
The domain name .рф is the Cyrillic country code top-level domain for the Russian Federation, in the Domain Name System of the Internet. In the Domain Name System it has the ASCII DNS name xn--p1ai. The domain accepts only Cyrillic subdomain applications, and is the first Cyrillic implementation of the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) system. The domain became operational on 13 May 2010. As of 2014 it is the most used internationalized country code top-level domain, with around 900,000 domain names.
.бг is an internationalized country code top-level domain for Bulgaria. The ASCII DNS name of the domain would be xn--90ae, according to rules of the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications procedures.
The domain name .укр is an approved internationalized country code top-level domain for Ukraine. It is a common abbreviation used in Ukraine, as in Ukrbank and Ukrnafta.
The Arabic name امارات, romanized as emarat, is the internationalized country code top-level domain for the United Arab Emirates. The ASCII name of this domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet is xn--mgbaam7a8h, using the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) procedure in the translation of the Unicode representation of the script version. The domain was installed in the Domain Name System on 5 May 2010.
The colloquial Egyptian domain name مصر is the internationalized country code top-level domain in the Domain Name System (DNS) of the Internet for Egypt. Its ASCII DNS name is xn--wgbh1c, obtained by the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) transcription method.
.বাংলা is a secondary and internationalized country code top-level domain (ccTLD) on the Internet for Bangladesh. This domain is meant for web addresses in the Bengali language. It is administered by the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology.
The Arabic top-level domain .شبكة is an internationalized domain name top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet for Arabic language websites. Websites using the domain can be accessed using its U-label (.شبكة) or A-label equivalent.