Fun with TLDs
Category: Tech...
Posted Friday, May 14, 2004 at 05:36 PM [GMT-6]

Did you ever wonder why the Top Level Domain ("TLD") for Australia is .aus, for the United Kingdom it's .uk, for France it's .fr and for Switzerland it's -- .ch?!

Wonder what China (.cn) thinks about this situation?

I don't know the answer to that, but I do know how Switzerland ended up with .ch, thanks to this entry on Wikipedia. This is where I learned that the Latin version of the official name for Switzerland is Confoederatio Helvetica, and the country's TLD is the acronym for that name.

Even in this esoteric area, Switzerland remains the ultimate diplomat. According to the Wikipedia entry, Confoederatio Helvetica is used because it "avoids choosing one of the four official languages," which include German, French, Italian and Romansh.

[For a complete list of TLDs by country -- from .ac (Ascension Island) to .zw (Zimbabwe), visit this site.]

Permalink
Comments

Can't resist being incredibly pedantic - the TLD for Australia is "au", not "aus".

Posted by: dan at May 16, 2004 10:53 PM

<blush> You're not being pedantic; you're being right.

I guess I always just assume that the wonderful continent of Australia deserves three letters, instead of just two! ;-)

Posted by: Eric at May 17, 2004 06:48 AM
Post a comment [Take your time...we're in no hurry.]
Note: You must provide either a website URL or an email address...but there's no rule that says you have to tell the truth. If you don't want your email address published on this site, just input a website URL, or make up an email address.









Remember personal info?