TLD Categories

Categories follow the type IANA publishes in the Root Zone Database. As of the IANA page redesign in 2026 the published values are Generic, Country Code and Special Use. The internationalized view below is derived from the punycode label and cuts across the IANA types.

Generic TLDs

1127

The classic gTLDs (.com, .net, .org) plus newer generic extensions. In IANA's current taxonomy this group also includes the TLDs older pages called sponsored(.gov, .edu, .museum, .aero, .post) and generic-restricted (.biz, .name, .pro).

Country-code TLDs

309

Two-letter codes assigned to countries and territories — .uk, .de, .jp, .cn, .ai, .io. Each is run by a national registry that sets its own eligibility and transfer rules.

Internationalized TLDs (IDNs)

151

TLDs stored as punycode (xn--…) and displayed in non-Latin scripts such as Arabic, CJK, Cyrillic and Devanagari — for example .中国, .рф and .भारत.

Special-use TLDs

IANA labels .arpa as "Special Use" — a technical infrastructure TLD delegated for reverse DNS. The eight reserved names (.test, .example, .invalid, …) share this label but are not delegated and have no pages here.

Definitions

Generic TLD (gTLD): The largest group. IANA's current pages publish this as "Generic"; the older, finer labels "Sponsored" and "Generic Restricted" are no longer published by IANA.
Country-code TLD (ccTLD): Two-letter codes for countries and territories, managed by national registries under local law. Registration may require a local presence or nexus.
Internationalized Domain Name (IDN): A cross-cutting view: TLDs whose labels are encoded as punycode in the DNS and shown to users in a native script. Both generic and country-code IDNs exist.
Special-use TLD: Names reserved for a defined technical purpose rather than public registration. .arpa is the delegated one; .test/.example/.invalid/.localhost/.local/.internal/.alt/.onion are reserved but not delegated.

Why categories changed

IANA's Root Zone Database index page was redesigned during 2026. Previous pages published six type values (generic, generic-restricted, country-code, sponsored, infrastructure, test); the current pages publish three (Generic, Country Code, Special Use). We follow what IANA publishes and record the change here rather than guessing at the old labels. The/category/sponsored/ and /category/restricted/ URLs from the earlier version now redirect to the generic category.