GeoTLD
A Geo TLD is a top level domain name category created by ICANN denoting geographical, geopolitical, ethnic, social or cultural representation. Currently, .asia (represents the Asian continent), .cat (represents the Catalan language) and .eu (represents the countries in the European Union) are considered geo TLDs. On June 26, 2007, a workshop regarding Geo TLDs was conducted during the International ICANN Public Meeting in San Juan Puerto Rico wherein .berlin, .cat, .nyc and .paris were presented as examples of top level domain names under this category.[1]
The geographic TLDs have formed in 2017 an interest group that is member of the Registry Stakeholder Group (RySG) at ICANN. The GeoTLD Group AISBL is an international non-for-profit membership association resident in Belgium. It represents and promotes the interests of organizations operating a generic top-level domain which denominates a geographic name, geographic identifier or geographic origin (so-called GeoTLD) with the purpose of serving the respective place, language and culture on the internet.[2]
Application Requirements/Procedures for Geo TLDs
ICANN requires applicants for geo TLDs to provide a documentation of support or non-objection from relevant government(s) or authority (ies). The same documentation is required to entities applying for a city name unless the name will only be used for a generic term brand. If there are multiple applications for a particular city name, applicants are required to resolve the competition among themselves. Linguistics experts will determine if a particular string represents a geographic or geopolitical name. Applications for Geo TLDs are evaluated by the Geographic Names Panel (GNP). [3]
Proposed Geo gTLDs
For a full list of GeoTLDs, see New gTLD Geographic Applications. Some of the proposed geo TLDs include:[4]