The map above shows (just about) every country code top-level domain (ccTLD) extension and the country it corresponds to.
You might already know that .ca is for Canada and .uk is for the United Kingdom, but do you know where .tv, .ly, or io are located?
The VisiBone Country Chart is described on their website as: “The world’s first map of internet country codes. Phone codes too, alphabetic and numeric lists. Look up four ways: code, name, location, or phone.”
And unlike most of the maps featured on Brilliant Maps, you can actually buy this one. Just visit the Visibone website and choose from a large ($25; 34-inch × 17-inch [86cm × 43cm]) or very large ($40; 48-inch × 24-inch [122cm × 61cm]) in either matte or gloss finish.
Here are just a few of the things you can learn by looking at the map:
- The official domain name extension for the United States is not .com, but .us.
- .tv is the country code for Tuvalu a South Pacific island nation of just 10,837 people (of which only 4,100 have internet access). In 2000, it negotiated a contract leasing its Internet domain name “.tv” for $50 million in royalties over a 12-year period.
- .io comes from the British Indian Ocean Territory, which has just 3,000 people.
- .ly is the ccTLD for Libya.
- The Cook Islands use the extension .ck, with business organizations using the unfortunate .co.ck.
A few interesting thing to note about European country level domain name extensions:
- .eh is not reserved for Canada, but Western Sahara
- Guernsey (.gg), Jersey (.je), the Isle of Man (.im), the Farroe Islands (.fo), Gibraltar (.gi), Andorra (.ad), San Marino (.sm), Vatican City (.va) and Lichtenstein (.li) all have their own unique country codes.
- Kosovo is not listed as it has yet to be assigned a top level domain.
- .is the ccTLD for Iceland (Ísland)
In Africa you’ll see that:
- That the map is missing .ss for South Sudan, but as of writing it’s not present in the root zone of the DNS, which means it’s not operational.
- The islands of Cape Verde (.cv), São Tomé and Príncipe (.st), Ascension (.ac), St. Helena (.sh), Seychelles (.sc), Mayotte (.yt), Reuinion (.re), Comoros (.km) and Mauritius (.mu) all have their own top level domain names.
- .cm for Cameroon is popular amount typosquatters as it’s 1 letter off .com.
- .co is the ccTLD for Colombia.
- .bs id the domain extension for The Bahamas.
- .an exists for the Netherlands Antilles despite the fact they were dissolved in 2010.
Popular extensions from this region include:
- .tv for Tuvalu
- .to for Tonga
- .ws for Samoa
- .fm (not seen) for the Federated States of Micronesia.
- .cc (not seen) for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
A few other interesting facts about country level domain name extensions:
- The extension .su is still in use, and stands for Soviet Union.
- .eu exists as an alternative to country specific domain names within the EU.
- .zr (Zaire) and .tp (East Timor) have both been deleted and replaced with .cd (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and .tl (Timor-Leste) respectively.
- .cs has also been now been deleted but it has the unique distinction as being assigned to two different countries first Czechoslovakia and then Serbia and Montenegro.
- However, Serbia and Montenegro continued to use .yu instead of .cs until 2007 when .rs and .me were created for Serbia and Montenegro respectively. .yu has now been deleted as well, but is supposedly the most widely used top level country domain name to have been deleted.
- Both East Germany (German Democratic Republic; .dd) and South Yemen (.yd) were eligible for their own top level domain names, but ceased to exist before they were created.
- Australia’s original ccTLD was .oz and not .au, oz domains moved to .oz.au.
- .aq exists for Antarctica.
- .gb is a reserved for the UK, but it’s not possible to register a domain name using this extension. Instead, the UK uses names ending in .uk (e.g. .co.uk, .ac.uk, .org.uk, .gov.uk, etc.)
- Regions that also have their own domain extensions or proposed extensions include: Kurdistan (.krd), Palestine (.ps), Wales (.cymru & .wales), Scotland (.scot), Catalan language (.cat), Basque country (.eus) and Asia (.asia).
If you’re curious about registering any of the above domains (or just want to know how much they cost) we strongly recommend doing so at Namecheap we use them to register all our domains and are very happy with their service. Click here to visit.
To learn more about ccTLD’s check out Wikipedia’s List of Internet top-level domains.
Enjoy this post? Please help spread the word by sharing:
George Nica says
Good!
Petdr says
Spain uses also .cat .eus .gal