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GENERAL INFORMATION There are over 243 ccTLDs; see the country codes, but there are several differences, explained below. Each country appoints managers for its ccTLD and sets the rules for allocating domains. Some countries allow anyone in the world to acquire a domain in their ccTLD, for example Austria ( At ) and Cocos (Keeling) Islands ( Cc ). Other countries or dependent territories allow only residents to acquire a domain in their ccTLD, for example Canada ( Ca ). ISO 3166-1 CODES NOT USED AS CCTLDS The codes EH and KP, although theoretically available as ccTLDs for Western Sahara and North Korea , have never been assigned and do not exist in DNS . Similarly, the new codes CS ( Serbia And Montenegro ) and AX ( Åland Islands ) are not yet assigned as ccTLDs ( Cs was previously assigned to Czechoslovakia ). TL (post-independence East Timor ), is now being introduced to replace TP. All other 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 territories Bouvet Island ( Bv ) and Svalbard ( Sj ) do exist in DNS, but no subdomains have been assigned, and it is Norid policy not to assign any at present. Only one domain (dra.hmg.gb, for the Defence Evaluation And Research Agency ) is still registered in Gb ( United Kingdom , although the letters actually stand for Great Britain , a subset of the UK) and no new registrations are being accepted for it. Sites in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland use Uk (see below). CCTLDS NOT IN ISO 3166-1 Six ccTLDs are currently in use despite not being ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes:
UNCONVENTIONAL CCTLD USAGE Lenient registration restrictions on certain ccTLDs has resulted in domain names like I.am, start.at and go.to. Other variations of ccTLD usage have been called Domain Hacks , where the Second-level Domain and ccTLD are used together to form one word or one title. This has resulted in domains like Blo.gs of South Georgia And The South Sandwich Islands ( Gs ), Del.icio.us of United States Of America ( Us ), and Cr.yp.to of Tonga ( To ). (Non country code TLDs have also been used, like inter.net which uses the .net gTLD, probably the first Domain Hack ever.) HISTORICAL CCTLDS There are two ccTLDs which have been deleted after the corresponding 2-letter code was withdrawn from ISO_3166-1 , namely Cs (for Czechoslovakia ) and Zr (for Zaire ). 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 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 remains in use more than a decade after SU was removed from ISO 3166-1. LIST OF CCTLDS A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J K
L
M
N
O P
Q R
S
T
U
V
W
Y Z SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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