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Up one level | To Tom Geller's writings | Home Where in the World? How to tell where a message originated By Tom Geller Since most of The Net 's readers are in the U.S., I'm guessing that you probably have an e-mail address that ends in either .edu, .net, or .com. The last part of your e-mail address (the "domain") indicates the institution through which you get your Internet access, whether it's a university (.edu), a network (.net) or a company (.com). For the United States, there are six such three-letter signifiers, the other three being .org (organizations), .gov (government), and .mil (military). But the United States is the only country that has more than one signifier, a privilege that comes from the fact the Internet grew up in this country. (Our pioneerism also explains why the telephone country code for the U.S. is "1".) The rule throughout the world is that each country gets a two-letter signifier as is determined by an international board of standards. So, for example, the domain tema.liu.se is in Sweden, and messages from ceniai.cu were written by someone in Cuba. The United States has a two-letter country code as well -- .us -- although it's infrequently seen. Exceptions arise when someone uses a service which is based in another country, as will happen more and more as commercial services become international. Apple's online service eWorld, for example, has several thousand members outside of North America, and yet all mail from the service comes from eworld.com. Below you'll find a list of 238 country codes as they appear in e-mail addresses and the Universal Resource Locators (URLs) of pages on the World-Wide Web. Keep in mind that the existence of a country code doesn't guarantee that the country has full Internet services, or any Internet connections at all. (As Orlando Raola mentioned in the main story, some of Cuba's connections actually originated in Canada!) But with the exponential growth of the Internet abroad, more and more of these country codes will be showing up in newsgroups and e-mail. Me, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for news from .cx --Christmas Island. com U.S.A. (Company) edu U.S.A. (Education) gov U.S.A. (Government) mil U.S.A. (Military) net U.S.A. (Network) org U.S.A. (Organization) al Albania dz Algeria as American Samoa ad Andorra ao Angola ai Anguilla aq Antarctica ag Antigua and Barbuda ar Argentina am Armenia aw Aruba au Australia at Austria az Azerbaijan bs Bahamas bh Bahrain bd Bangladesh bb Barbados by Belarus be Belgium bz Belize bj Benin bm Bermuda bt Bhutan bo Bolivia ba Bosnia and Herzegovina bw Botswana bv Bouvet Island br Brazil io British Indian Ocean Territory bn Brunei Darussalam bg Bulgaria bf Burkina Faso bi Burundi kh Cambodia cm Cameroon ca Canada cv Cape Verde ky Cayman Islands cf Central African Republic td Chad cl Chile cn China cx Christmas Island cc Cocos (Keeling) Islands co Colombia km Comoros cg Congo ck Cook Islands cr Costa Rica ci Ivory Coast (Cote d'Ivoire) hr Croatia (Hrvatska) cu Cuba cy Cyprus cz Czech Republic dk Denmark dj Djibouti dm Dominica do Dominican Republic tp East Timor ec Ecuador eg Egypt sv El Salvador gq Equatorial Guinea er Eritrea ee Estonia et Ethiopia fk Falkland Islands fo Faroe Islands fj Fiji fi Finland fr France gf French Guiana pf French Polynesia tf French Southern Territories ga Gabon gm Gambia ge Georgia de Germany gh Ghana gi Gibraltar gr Greece gl Greenland gd Grenada gp Guadeloupe gu Guam gt Guatemala gn Guinea gw Guinea-Bissau gy Guyana ht Haiti hm Heard and McDonald Islands hn Honduras hk Hong Kong hu Hungary is Iceland in India id Indonesia ir Iran iq Iraq ie Ireland il Israel it Italy jm Jamaica jp Japan jo Jordan kz Kazakhstan ke Kenya ki Kiribati kp Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) kr Republic of Korea (South Korea) kw Kuwait kg Kyrgyzstan la Lao Democratic Republic lv Latvia lb Lebanon ls Lesotho lr Liberia ly Libya li Liechtenstein lt Lithuania lu Luxembourg mo Macau mk Macedonia mg Madagascar mw Malawi my Malaysia mv Maldives ml Mali mt Malta mh Marshall Islands mq Martinique mr Mauritania mu Mauritius yt Mayotte mx Mexico fm Micronesia md Moldova mc Monaco mn Mongolia ms Montserrat ma Morocco mz Mozambique mm Myanmar na Namibia nr Nauru np Nepal nl Netherlands an Netherlands Antilles nc New Caledonia nz New Zealand ni Nicaragua ne Niger ng Nigeria nu Niue nf Norfolk Island mp Northern Mariana Islands no Norway om Oman pk Pakistan pw Palau pa Panama pg Papua New Guinea py Paraguay pe Peru ph Philippines pn Pitcairn pl Poland pt Portugal pr Puerto Rico qa Qatar re Reunion ro Romania ru Russian Federation rw Rwanda kn Saint Kitts and Nevis lc Saint Lucia vc Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ws Samoa sm San Marino st Sao Tome and Principe sa Saudi Arabia sn Senegal sc Seychelles sl Sierra Leone sg Singapore sk Slovakia si Slovenia sb Solomon Islands so Somalia za South Africa gs South Georgia es Spain lk Sri Lanka sh St. Helena pm St. Pierre and Miquelon sd Sudan sr Suriname sj Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands sz Swaziland se Sweden ch Switzerland sy Syria tw Taiwan tj Tajikistan tz Tanzania th Thailand tg Togo tk Tokelau to Tonga tt Trinidad and Tobago tn Tunisia tr Turkey tm Turkmenistan tc Turks and Caicos Islands tv Tuvalu ug Uganda ua Ukraine us United States of America ae United Arab Emirates gb United Kingdom uk United Kingdom uy Uruguay uz Uzbekistan vu Vanuatu va Vatican City ve Venezuela vn Viet Name vg British Virgin Islands vi US Virgin Islands wf Wallis and Futina Islands eh Western Sahara ye Yemen yu Yugoslavia zr Zaire zm Zambia zw Zimbabwe This page was last updated on Thursday, January 05, 2012 at 6:17pm CST. All contents copyright 2005 by Tom Geller.