<div class="posttop">
<h2><a href="http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/01/26/10-places-with-an-internet-top-level-domain-but-hardly-any-people/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to 10 places with an Internet
top-level domain but hardly any people">10 places with an Internet
top-level domain but hardly any people</a></h2>
<div class="postinfo">Posted in <a href="http://royal.pingdom.com/category/main/" title="View all posts in
Main" rel="category tag">Main</a> on January 26th, 2010 by Pingdom</div>
</div>
<div class="entry">
<p><img alt="Tiny place with TLD" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2700/4305845915_b9fd144213_o.jpg" title="Tiny place with TLD" class="alignnone" height="270" width="580"></p>
<p>Most country code top-level domains on the Internet represent areas
with millions of people, such as .uk (United Kingdom), .ca (Canada), .de
(Germany), .se (Sweden), and so on, but there a places where the
population isn’t counted in the millions, or even thousands, that still
have their very own top-level domain on the Internet. Some of them
aren’t even inhabited.</p>
<p>IANA, the organization that administers the domain name system, bases
its allocation of country code top-level domains on the standard
country code list in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1">ISO
3166-1</a> which defines codes for “the names of countries, dependent
territories, and special areas of geographical interest.”</p>
<blockquote><p>The IANA is not in the business of deciding what is and
what is not a country. The selection of the ISO 3166 list as a basis for
country code top-level domain names was made with the knowledge that
ISO has a procedure for determining which entities should be and should
not be on that list. ( – Jon Postel, <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1591">RFC 1591</a>)</p></blockquote>
<p>This has led to some really interesting situations with top-level
domains (TLDs) for places where no one actually lives, or with very tiny
populations.</p>
<h3>TLDs for 10 places with tiny populations </h3>
<p>We have sorted them by population size, smallest first.</p>
<h4>.hm – Heard and McDonald Islands</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 0</strong></p>
<p>A territory of Australia, the Heard and McDonald Islands is a group
of barren, uninhabited volcanic islands in the middle of the ocean
between Africa and Antarctica. The main reason there are any domain
names registered for .hm is that it’s been marketed as a “home” address.</p>
<h4>.pn – Pitcairn Islands</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 50</strong></p>
<p>The Pitcairn Islands consists of four volcanic islands in the
southern Pacific Ocean and is a former British colony. It’s the home of
the descendants of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty">Bounty
mutineers</a>.</p>
<h4>.tf – French Southern and Antarctic Lands</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 140</strong></p>
<p>A number of islands spread over a rather large area of the Indian
Ocean between Africa and Australia. There is no permanent population;
merely a group of military personnel, scientists, officials and support
staff.</p>
<h4>.cc – Cocos (Keeling) Islands</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 596</strong></p>
<p>A territory of Australia, the Cocos Islands is a group of islands
located in the Indian Ocean about halfway between India and Australia.
The .cc TLD is also used by the Turkish part of Cyprus, mainly because
only Turkey recognizes it as a sovereign state so it won’t get its own
TLD.</p>
<h4>.va – Vatican City</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 826</strong></p>
<p>Vatican City is of course the well-known walled city-state within
Rome that serves as the high seat of the Catholic Church.</p>
<h4>.ac – Ascension Island</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 940</strong></p>
<p>Ascension Island is a volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean and
is a territory of the United Kingdom. It is home to one of five ground
antennas that assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System
(GPS). </p>
<h4>.aq – Antarctica</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 1,000 – 5,000</strong></p>
<p>Antarctica has no permanent population; the only people in Antarctica
are scientists living for periods of time in various research stations
scattered over the continent. The .aq TLD is reserved for use by
organizations that are conducting work in or promoting Antarctica. </p>
<h4>.nu – Niue</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 1,398</strong></p>
<p>An island nation just northeast of New Zealand, commonly known as the
“Rock of Polynesia”. Since “nu” means “now” in Swedish, Danish and
Dutch, .nu has been successfully marketed in Sweden, Denmark, the
Netherlands and Belgium.</p>
<h4>.tk – Tokelau</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 1,416</strong></p>
<p>A territory of New Zealand, Tokelau consists of three islands in the
southern Pacific Ocean north of New Zealand.</p>
<h4>.io – British Indian Ocean Territory</h4>
<p><strong>Population: 3,500</strong></p>
<p>Also known as Chagos Islands, it’s a territory of the United Kingdom.
It’s a group of islands located about halfway between Africa and
Indonesia. The population almost exclusively consists of a joint
military outpost for the United Kingdom and United States.</p>
<h3>Final words</h3>
<p>Compare the above top-level domains with .in – India, population:
1.2 billion – and .cn – China, population: 1.3 billion. A wee bit of a
difference. <img src="http://royal.pingdom.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="wp-smiley"> </p>
<p><em><strong>Photo credit:</strong> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cocos_keelingISS002-E-9900.PNG">Satellite
photo by NASA</a></em></p>
</div>