ccTLDs – what are country domain names?

Top-level domains (TLDs) are what make up the highest level of the domain name system (DNS), the internet’s directory service. Making up the final part of an internet address, they’re often referred to as domain endings. The function of these endings is to help simplify the classification process of all registered addresses in the DNS. To this end, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) assigns country-specific top-level domains, or ccTLDs (country code TLDs), which are then managed by their respective countries. Domain guidelines define conditions that apply to the ccTLD’s registration (e.g. which characters are allowed, minimum/maximum length, or location). Additionally, ICANN also conveys theme-specific TLDs (gTLDs), like .com, a domain once exclusively reserved for American companies–to domain registries.

The fact that every country has the right to determine its own guidelines for assigning its domain leads to considerable variation. In France, for example, anyone wishing to register their domain under .fr first needs to have their residency or company headquarters located within France. And until 2009, Germany required all .de TLDs to be composed of at least three characters, of which at least one had to be a letter. Many smaller or poorer countries have capitalised on these domain assignment rules by strategically marketing their ccTLDs:

• .to: the ccTLD of the island nation of Tonga has been managed by the domain registry, Tonic, since 1997. The assignment process takes places automatically, regardless of the applicant’s actual residency. And the fact that Tonic doesn’t carry out a whois search means that .to domain owners remain completely anonymous, making it a very popular domain for file sharing as well as other controversial video services.

• .tv:  the microstate of Tuvala was able to cash in on US $50,000,000 when it sold its ccTLD to the company DotTV, which then marketed its purchase as a television domain. The money went to financing IT infrastructure as well as paying the admission fee for the UN.

• .ag: the top-level domain, .ag, is actually for the independent state of Antigua and Barbuda. It’s also often used by many large German businesses whose legal entities are organised as Aktiongesellschaften, or joint-stock companies.

• .me: Montenegro’s country top-level domain has experienced a massive flood of registrations since first becoming available in 2008. .me domains, which often take on constructs like love.me, are often auctioned off upon registration. A notable example was seen in 2011 when the domain meet.me was sold for US $450,000.

In addition to the over 200 ccTLDs, there’s also a host of internationalised TLDs, which contain umlauts, diacritic characters, or letters from non-Latin alphabets. These IDN top-level domains have been around since 2010 and allow virtually all Unicode characters, although individual registries are still able to determine which characters are allowed. A complete list of top-level domains for countries as well as a collection of internationalised TLDs can be found on Wikipedia.

Given the geographical and political background of country code top-level domains, it’s often the case that some changes need to be made. Even today, ICANN is often busy with the task of both deleting no-longer relevant ccTLDs as well as registering new ones. Proof of just how long some of these cases can drag out can be seen in some of the ongoing cases involving country ccTLDs of the former Soviet Union. Although the USSR collapsed in 1991, it remains possible even to this day to register a domain under .su. The following domains have been successfully deleted and thus count as former ccTLDs:

• .an: citizens of the Netherlands Antilles were able to register with an .an address until the country was dissolved in 2010. ICANN accepted the domains .bq (Caribbean Netherlands), .cw (Curaçao), and .sx (Sint Maarten), which have since fully replaced .an

• .dd: the .dd domain was originally intended for the GDR (German Democratic Republic), which still existed when the ccTLDs were first introduced. The domain only ever served an internal use between two East German universities.

• .um: this top-level domain was dissolved in 2008 and refers to the United States Minor Outlying islands, a group of uninhabited pacific islands managed by the University of Southern California. After it became defunct, the ICANN removed the domain in response to the University’s wish to no longer bear responsibility for the domain.

• .yu: the former Yugoslav Republic’s ccTLD and its since dissolved predecessor state, Serbia and Montenegro, was removed in 2010 after .yu website owners were able to divide the domain into .rs (Serbia) and .me (Montenegro).

• .zr: shortly after the country code top-level-domain for the Republic of Zaire was introduced, the African state changed its name to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997 and was assigned its new domain, .cd, at the same time. The domain ending .zr was finally deleted by ICANN in 2001.

Click here to download the infographic about top-level domains.