PART 1
Essential Internet Knowledge
Chapter 2
The Administration of the Internet
Page 16 - Registrars for ccTLDs (country code TLDs)
Registrars for ccTLDs (Country Code TLDs)
Country code top level domains (ccTLDs) are also referred to as ISO 3166 domains. ISO is the International Organization for Standardization (http://www.iso.ch) and ISO 3166-1 lists country codes for the names of countries. The country codes are maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency (ISO 3166/MA) at DIN, Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardization in Berlin). See DIN (in English).
In order to stay as politically neutral as possible, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency adds country codes to the list of ccTLDs only on two grounds: 1) if the country is listed by the United Nations in the UN Bulletin "Country Names" and in the UN code list of the "Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use" - which accounts for 99% of the ccTLDs, or, 2) if there is a specific request by a country or area16 subject to the strict criteria for listing found at ISO:
"To be listed in the bulletin Country Names you must either be
- a member country of the United Nations,
- a member of one of its specialized agencies or
- a party to the Statute of the International Court of Justice.
The list of names in the code of the UN Statistics Division is based on the bulletin Country Names and other UN sources.
Once a country name or territory name appears in either of these two sources, it will be added to ISO 3166-1 by default."
Examples of country code domain name extensions are:
.uk (United Kingdom ),17 .us (USA), .de (Germany - Deutschland), .au (Australia), .jp (Japan), .lv (Latvia), .ru (Russian Federation),
as also such potentially confusing ccTLDs as .ch (Switzerland - Confoederatio Helvetica), .cn (China) and .cl (Chile) or .za (South Africa) and .sa (Saudi Arabia) or .es (Spain - Espana) and .ee (Estonia - Eesti) or .il (Israel) and .is (Iceland - Island).
Links to all listed ccTLDs and their registrars are found at the IANA site at http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm.
Specific information about registration services in any country or area is obtained by clicking on an IANA ccTLD link at the IANA URL above, e.g. try .uk.
Details regarding the terms and conditions for such registrations must be obtained by consulting the registrar offering the specific services for a given domain name extension. ICANN does not specifically accredit such ccTLD registrars.
Detailed information concerning the actual process of domain name registration and the problems affiliated with such registration, including domain name disputes, can be found in Chapter 4 of this book. There is also a related website at CENTR, the Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries, Ltd.
