Top-level domain name registrars

Maintaining the list of all these registrars is a fairly thankless and difficult task. However, we have one, courtesy of the ITU, which will get you started. The original is in Geneva, but the ITU tends to move things around. If you find obvious errors or problems, please let us know.

• Sorted by Country Name
• Sorted by 2-letter code

This is a survey by the ITU of the contact information for all ISO 3166-based Internet Top Level Domains. All material gathered here is provided to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) who coordinates ISO 3166-based Top Level Domain delegations. For comparative purposes, pointers to the current whois reference information managed by IANA is also provided for each entry. For additional explanation, see Background on the ISO 3166 Standard and Background on the Use of the ISO 3166 Standard for Designation of Internet Top Level Domains. Note that the denominations and classifications employed in the survey do not imply any opinion on the part of the ITU concerning the legal or other status of any territory or any endorsement or acceptance of any boundary.

Background on the ISO 3166 Standard

The ISO 3166 MA is composed of 10 indiviual members with voting rights. Five are representatives from the national standards bodies of the United States of America (ANSI), United Kingdom (BSI), Germany (DIN), Sweden (SIS), and France (AFNOR). The other five are representatives of international organizations that help in elaborating the country codes and are major users of ISO 3166-1. These include the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Universal Postal Union (UPU), UN Statistical Division (New York), Statistics Department of the United Nations in New York, and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) / United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (latter with shared vote).

The lists given in the United Nations' Bulletin "Country Names" and in the code list of the "Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use" are authoritative inputs for ISO 3166-1. By using UN lists of country names the ISO 3166/MA stays as politically neutral as possible.

The ISO 3166 Standard includes multiple "code sets" including alpha-2 (two letter), alpha-3 (three letter), and numeric codes. The ISO 3166 MA also maintains a list of reserved code elements for various requirements including transitional reservations, as a result of changes in the standard.

Background on the Use of the ISO 3166 Standard for Designation of Internet Top Level Domains

Attention is drawn to several exceptions made by IANA in allocation of top level domains based on the ISO 3166 alpha-2 code set, as described below:

• In the case of the United Kingdom, the associated Internet top level domain is ".uk" instead of ".gb" (Great Britain) due to historical reasons of Internet development in this country.
• Internet top level domains based on codes for Ascension Island (.ac), Guernsey (.gg), Isle of Man (.im), and Jersey (.je) have also been allocated by IANA. These codes are in an "exceptionally reserved" alpha-2 code set maintained by the ISO 3166 MA and are not part of the ISO 3166 Standard-1. See http://www.din.de/gremien/nas/nabd/iso3166ma/reserved.html for more information on reserved code elements.

Note that the above exceptions have also been included in the survey because they have equivalent Internet top level domains.