Dedicated to preserving the central
coordinating functions of the global Procedures for Establishing ccTLDs The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and what is not a country, nor what code letters are appropriate for a particular country. Instead, the IANA employs a neutral list of two-letter codes maintained by the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency. The IANA's policy is to create new ccTLDs only when they are listed on the ISO 3166-1 list. For a recent case in which this policy was applied, see the IANA Report on Request for Delegation of the .ps Top-Level Domain. The codes IANA uses are two-letter codes from the ISO 3166-1 list. (Click here for the French-language version and here for a list suitable for database import.) The selection of the ISO 3166-1 list as a basis for country code top-level domain names was made with the knowledge that ISO has a politically neutral procedure for determining which entities should be and should not be on that list. The ISO 3166-1 list is a broadly accepted list of country codes intended for many uses, not simply for use as ccTLD codes. Accordingly, in describing the relationship between the ISO 3166-1 list and ccTLDs, the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency includes the following:
(19 March 2003)
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