Introduced | 28 November 1990[1] |
---|---|
TLD type | Country code top-level domain |
Status | Active |
Registry | China Internet Network Information Center |
Sponsor | Chinese Academy of Sciences |
Intended use | Entities connected with![]() |
Actual use | Very popular in mainland China (the largest ccTLD)[2] |
Registered domains | 21 million (April 2017)[1] |
Structure | Names may be registered directly at the second level or at the third level within generic second-level categories or Chinese province codes |
Documents | China Internet Domain Name Regulations |
Dispute policies | China ccTLD Dispute Resolution Policy and China ccTLD Dispute Resolution Policy Rules |
Registry website | CNNIC (General) |
.cn is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the People's Republic of China introduced on 28 November 1990. Domain name administration in mainland China is managed through a branch of the Ministry of Industry and Information. The registry is maintained by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Entities connected to Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan often use .hk, .mo, .tw respectively, despite their corresponding second-level domains under .cn available for those regions. The Chinese alphabet internationalized country code is .中国.
Any individual may register for second-level domain names. However, the registry has created a set of predefined second-level domains for certain types of organizations and geographic locations. Registrations for such third-level domains were available before second-level domains became available in 2003, and registrants of third-level domains were given priority for names at the second level.
The two-letter abbreviations are the same as those found in GB/T 2260-2002.[3]
Internationalized domain names with Chinese characters may be registered at the second level under the .cn top-level domain.
On 25 June 2010, ICANN approved the use of the internationalized country code top-level domains .中国 (China in simplified Chinese characters, DNS name xn--fiqs8s) and .中國 (China in traditional Chinese characters, DNS name xn--fiqz9s) by CNNIC.[4] These two TLDs were added to the DNS in July 2010.
CNNIC proposed around this time Chinese domain names in .公司 (".com" in Chinese) and .网络 (".net" in Chinese). However, these have not been recognized by ICANN yet and are only available via domestic domain name registrars.
Around 15 other generic domain names with Chinese characters have later been registered. See List of Internet top-level domains#Chinese characters.