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FAQ: International E-mail accessibility


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Archive-name: mail/country-codes
Last-modified: 2003/02/01

See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge
Based on International Standard ISO 3166 Codes
Compiled by Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond
E-mail: <ocl@gih.com>

Release: 2003.02.1


Release Notes:   a. .AERO and .PRO are now live. New Web links.
                 b. FX - France (European Territories), deleted
                 c. modified reference to ISO3166 list
                 d. added APNIC Whois Web page info

This document is Copyright 1994-2003 by Olivier Crepin-Leblond. 
Parts of this document may be reproduced in a commercial publication
ONLY if prior permission has been granted by the copyright holder.

It may however be freely redistributed in its entirety provided that
this copyright notice, its headers "Archive-name", "Last-modified",
and "Release" are not removed. If unsure, please E-mail ocl@gih.com

This document answers the question:

"Has country X got E-mail or Internet access ?". 

The following table is a guide of country codes, showing the 
countries which have access to Internet or general E-mail services.  
The country codes have been derived from the International 
Organization for Standardization standard ISO 3166 found on:
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html

A country code is taken as a top level domain once it is registered 
by ICANN, www.icann.org so *not* all country codes listed 
are top level domains. At the bottom of the table, there is also 
a section of general top level domains, based on the information
available at ICANN.

NOTES

I. Description of codes

FI  stands for FULL INTERNET access. This includes 'telnet', 'ftp',
    and internet E-mail.
B   stands for BITNET (Because It's Time NETwork) access although 
    the address may be in internet DNS (Domain Name System) format. 
    Please note that this network is being dismantled and quickly
    replaced by Full Internet connectivity.
*   (Asterisk) means that the country is reachable by E-mail. If this is
    not preceded by FI or B, it means that the connection may be a UUCP
    connection. An asterisk is included after FI or B for consistency.
C   stands for the "courtesy" top level domain. There may actually be no
    physical access as such in the country referenced by this top level
    domain, but E-mail and/or Web addresses can be obtained under it;
    in some cases, this is for an official Web server for that country,
    which is facility-managed elsewhere. In other cases, it is a
    courtesy domain provided for commercial reasons which may, or may
    not be seen as a legitimate use of that top level domain. Indeed
    some small countries have generated income by selling or letting
    their top level domain, and using the income for the development
    of their own internet infrastructure.
PFI stands for a provisional full internet connection.(+) 
P   stands for provisional connection. (+)
    (+) This is used when one or more of the following is true:
       - address not verified or lack of address
       - UUCP dialup not active
       - net connection possible but not officially announced
       - premature official announcement of connection
F   stands for a country that is connected to Internet only via means
    of the FIDOnet network. It is assumed that the FIDO connection in this
    case is stable and reliable.


II. Networks which are not included

Networks such as MILNET (U.S. Military's unclassified portion of the
DDN - Data Defense Network) have computers all around the world. It is 
generally possible to assume that wherever there is a U.S. military base, 
there will be a node reachable through gateways. Similarly, you can bet
that whenever a Space Shuttle (Orbiter in NASA lingo), they're connected
to NASA's Network.

Worldwide Private company networks (banks, computer companies etc. that
have their own worldwide corporate intra-net).

Some networks based on X.400 E-mail, which offer high-cost networking
access. While those types of network are fading fast due to their 
high cost compared to the Internet, some regions of the world are
still reacheable only via such networks.  The service is VERY COSTLY, 
usually takes place via UUCP or X.400 connections. X.400 E-mail is 
usually charged to someone and if the telecommunication carrier 
cannot find someone to pay for the message transfer, it will reject 
it.  Although you may be able to RECEIVE E-mail from a user on those 
networks, you may not be able to reply to it.

 
III. Updates

    The situation changes from day to day. 

The growth in international networking is such that the information 
contained in this document may be out of date by the time it reaches 
you.
Please send me ( ocl@gih.com ) any updates, including an example
address, for verification purposes.

Furthermore, if you are a connection provider or could provide a
low cost connection in a country, and are not listed as a provider in 
that country (see "FURTHER INFORMATION" section), please notify either
Randy Bush <randy@nsrc.org>, Steven Huter <sghuter@nsrc.org> or me (or
all three of us !). 
Alternatively, better still, please enter details directly on:
http://www.nsrc.org/db/admin ,the provider update form.
NOTE: This doesn't include providers for North America.  If you are a 
North American provider, then please DON'T contact us - there are
already thousands of providers out there.


IV. BITNET and .US sites

   There are are few BITNET nodes left in the US, but none have a 
name in the format `.US', hence the US domain is only FI and *.
The slow shutting down of BITNET is nearly complete, with only a 
handful of nodes in existence, most of which are directly reacheable 
via the Internet under a DNS name. R.I.P. Bitnet !


V. .edu, .com, etc.

    The domains in this section are special in that some of them are
used in more than one country. The domains which have full internet 
access are marked accordingly. 


VI. UK and GB domains

    UK stands for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland. GB actually stands for Great Britain. GB is therefore a
subset of UK. In reality, the GB top level domain has been used mainly
for X.400 addressing of sites, while the UK top level domain is more
commonly used. While in the early nineties, there was an emphasis towards
X.400, and hence towards registration under the GB top level domain,
this policy does not stand anymore, and relatively few sites in the
UK are now registered under the GB top level domain.


VII. Further information column

While there was a time when it was possible to display all
further information about a country's connectivity on this table,
it is now impossible to do so. 
We suggest downloading the Web-based version of this document from 
http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html and selecting the
top level domain concerned - this will point to a wealth of
further information.


VIII. Where to find further information

  In addition to the Web form of this document, a number of sites 
run on-line information databases, mail-servers, and web information 
systems where further information can be found.

- www.internic.net / Network Solutions www.networksolutions.com
    Part of this site, the InterNIC database services, contains the
  Internet "white pages". The "whois" section of the "white pages"
  has registration records for top level domains. Whois can be
  accessed via the Web:
  http://www.networksolutions.com/cgi-bin/whois/whois 
  or using the "whois" command available on some computer systems:
  (whois -h whois.internic.net).
  Registration records for a domain are sometimes useful since they
  provide Administrative and Technical Contacts for this domain
  and those may hence be able to provide further information.
  Whois can also be accessible by E-mailing mailserv@internic.net
  and subject: whois <name/domain>

- whois.ripe.net
    The Central European Registry run by RIPE, the co-ordinator for
  European Internet nodes. It contains a lot of information regarding
  European IP, etc. This is where the European WHOIS pages are found:
  http://www.ripe.net/perl/whois

- whois.apnic.net
    The Asia Pacific Network Information Center, the co-ordinator
  for Internet sites in Asia and the Pacific area.
  http://www.apnic.net/apnic-bin/whois.pl

- GNET: an Archive and Electronic Journal
    This is co-ordinated by Larry Press <lpress@isi.edu> and contains
  bookmarks for worldwide networking resources as well as papers
  and documents about connectivity. Access the archive as:
  http://som.csudh.edu/cis/lpress/devnat/ 

- Bitnet Network Information Center
    Bitnet LISTSERVs contain files which list all BITNET sites around 
  the world. For a listing of all BITNET sites, in country code order,
  Transfer it from: ftp://ftp.lsoft.com/listserv-data/bitearn.nodes
  or: ftp://segate.sunet.se/listserv-data/bitearn.nodes
  Since BITNET is being shutdown slowly, the list is only updated
  when nodes are removed.  Nodes remain in only 9 countries.

- IANA, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 
    This site keeps a list of country code registries at:
  http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm
  Effectively, this is the Root-Zone Whois Information.
  It is very useful for getting in touch with registration
  services for each country. 

- ICANN, the Internet Central Authority for Network Numbers
    This organisation has taken over the process of Top Level
  Domain assignment from IANA, and the process of management
  from Network Solutions (the InterNIC). It is found on:
  http://www.icann.org

- Internet Software Consortium/Network Wizards Internet Domain 
    Survey. Every 6 months, a complete Internet Domain survey 
    of the Internet is attempted, with host counts in all 
    countries reacheable by the Net. 
   For all information: http://www.isc.org/ds

- www.nsrc.org
    This Web system, maintained by the Network Startup Resource
  Center contains perhaps the most comprehensive collection of 
  historical information about country connectivity. It is housed at
  the  University of Oregon Computing Centre.
  The information is maintained in a distributed database (mySQL 
  and Java web server) that allows for friends and colleagues 
  around the world to help maintain the data about their 
  respective networks and countries.

  It's top level reference is: http://www.nsrc.org/ and the 
  coloured maps held in http://www.nsrc.org/codes/bymap/world.html
  point to further information on http://www.nsrc.org/db.
  
  Many thanks to Randy Bush <randy@nsrc.org>, John Klensin
  <klensin@nsrc.org> and Steven Huter <sghuter@nsrc.org> for 
  setting-up this site and this collaborative effort.


IX. Archiving

    At each release, this document is archived in a number of archive
sites around the world. Amongst them:

 ftp://rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/
# ftp://ftp.uu.net:/usenet/news.answers/mail/
 ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/usenet/news.answers/news.newusers.questions/

(#) those may not be accessible via Bear access or direct PC access
    in some cases. 

The document is also retrievable by E-mail from rtfm.mit.edu by
sending an E-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu , blank subject line
and the command: send usenet/news.answers/mail/country-codes

The up-to-date, pre-release document is also available using a
simple mail-server robot:
Send E-mail to: <robot@gih.com> with a subject: archive-server-request
and the command: get mail/country-codes  in the body of your message.

The document is also distributed automatically once a month on a 
mailing list. To subscribe to that mailing list, send a message to:
country-codes-request@nsrc.org   with the command in the body of the 
message: subscribe 

The whole collection of documents (monthly releases since 1992 !) 
is available on:    http://www.nsrc.org/oclb


X. World-Wide-Web (WWW) documents

A Web document is available on the World Wide Web. It is based
on this FAQ, and has links to further information for each domain:

          http://www.nsrc.org/codes/country-codes.html

A set of clickable international colour-coded maps is available at:

          http://www.nsrc.org/codes/bymap/world.html

The pages are kindly hosted by the Network Startup Resource Center
computer at the University of Oregon.

Web references for Top-Level information servers for a particular country
should be sent to <ocl@gih.com>. Thanks to all who have helped !


XI. Internetology

The Internet has exploded in size in the last few years. 
The present document has been edited monthly since 1993, and some Web 
pages have been put together to reflect on the continuing spread of 
Internet/E-mail in the world since that time, between 1993 and 1997, when
most Internet development took place in terms of new countries getting
connected.

This section is called "Internetology".

It provides a graphical history of the spread of the Net in developing 
countries, by taking snapshots of Internet connectivity every six
months since November 1993. All of the maps tie-up with the 
information that is included with the FAQ on International E-mail 
accessibility.

The reference for the Internetology pages is:

           http://www.nsrc.org/codes/bymap/ntlgy/


ISO 3166 Codes + Top level domains.

WARNING:

The link to some countries marked as being connected to Internet via
UUCP or FIDO is often an expensive telephone dialup link. The people
in those countries pay dearly for every byte of information sent to
them. It is therefore not advised to send an electronic mail to a
remote computer in such a country asking about the local weather report.

Please think twice before sending such E-mail. Thank you!

Code  Connect     Country                  Further information 
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AC    FI   * C  Ascension Island            
AD    FI   *    Andorra                                             
AE    FI   *    United Arab Emirates                       
AF         P C  Afghanistan(Islamic State)   
AG    FI   *    Antigua and Barbuda                         
AI    FI   *    Anguilla               
AL    FI   *    Albania                                    
AM    FI   *    Armenia                    Ex-USSR
AN    FI   *    Netherland Antilles    
AO    FI   *    Angola (Republic of)                       
AQ    FI   *    Antarctica                 intermittent  
AR    FI   *    Argentina                                  
AS    FI   *    American Samoa         
AT    FI   *    Austria                                    
AU    FI   *    Australia                                   
AW    FI   *    Aruba                                      
AZ    FI   *    Azerbaijan                 Ex-USSR         
BA    FI   *    Bosnia-Herzegovina          
BB    FI   *    Barbados                                   
BD    FI   *    Bangladesh             
BE    FI   *    Belgium                                   
BF    FI   *    Burkina Faso                              
BG    FI   *    Bulgaria                               
BH    FI   *    Bahrain                                 
BI    FI   *    Burundi               
BJ    FI   *    Benin                
BM    FI   *    Bermuda                 
BN    FI   *    Brunei Darussalam      
BO    FI   *    Bolivia                                  
BR    FI   * C  Brazil                                   
BS    FI   *    Bahamas                                  
BT    FI   * C  Bhutan                
BV              Bouvet Island
BW    FI   *    Botswana                                 
BY    FI   *    Belarus                  Ex-USSR         
BZ    FI   * C  Belize                                   
CA    FI B *    Canada                                  
CC    FI   * C  Cocos (Keeling) Islands
CD    FI   * C  Democratic Republic of Congo  
CF    FI   *    Central African Republic  
CG    FI   * C  Congo                  
CH    FI   *    Switzerland                              
CI    FI   *    Ivory Coast                              
CK    FI   *    Cook Islands          
CL    FI B *    Chile                                    
CM    FI   *    Cameroon             
CN    FI   *    China                                  
CO    FI   * C  Colombia                                 
CR    FI   *    Costa Rica                               
CU    FI   *    Cuba                                     
CV    FI   *    Cape Verde             
CX           C  Christmas Island       
CY    FI   *    Cyprus                                   
CZ    FI   *    Czech Republic                          
DE    FI   *    Germany                            
DJ    FI   *    Djibouti               
DK    FI   *    Denmark                               
DM    FI   *    Dominica                                 
DO    FI   *    Dominican Republic                       
DZ    FI   *    Algeria                                  
EC    FI   *    Ecuador                                  
EE    FI   *    Estonia                                  
EG    FI   *    Egypt                                    
EH              Western Sahara
ER    FI   *    Eritrea                                  
ES    FI   *    Spain                                
ET    FI   *    Ethiopia                                 
FI    FI B *    Finland                             
FJ    FI   *    Fiji                                      
FK    FI   * C  Falkland (Malvinas)   
FM    FI   *    Micronesia            
FO    FI   *    Faroe Islands                            
FR    FI   *    France                                  
GA    FI   *    Gabon                  
GB    FI   *    Great Britain (UK)       X.400 & IP both use this TLD
GD    FI   *    Grenada               
GE    FI   *    Georgia                  Ex-USSR         
GF    FI   *    Guiana (French)                             
GG    FI   *    Guernsey (Channel Island)     
GH    FI   *    Ghana                                    
GI    FI   *    Gibraltar             
GL    FI   *    Greenland                                
GM    FI   *    Gambia                                   
GN    FI   *    Guinea               
GP    FI   *    Guadeloupe (French)                        
GQ    FI   *    Equatorial Guinea   
GR    FI   *    Greece                                  
GS           C  South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands 
GT    FI   *    Guatemala                          
GU    FI   *    Guam (US)                 US domains     
GW    FI   *    Guinea Bissau          
GY    FI   *    Guyana                 
HK    FI   *    Hong Kong                         
HM           C  Heard & McDonald Islands
HN    FI   *    Honduras              
HR    FI   *    Croatia                                 
HT    FI   *    Haiti                                   
HU    FI   *    Hungary                               
ID    FI   *    Indonesia                                
IE    FI   *    Ireland                             
IL    FI   *    Israel                            
IN    FI   *    India                                    
IM    FI   *    Isle of Man            
IO    FI   *    British Indian Ocean Territory
IQ    FI   *    Iraq
IR    FI   *    Iran                                      
IS    FI B *    Iceland                           
IT    FI B *    Italy                           
JE    FI   *    Jersey (Channel Islands)      
JM    FI   *    Jamaica                                  
JO    FI   *    Jordan                                   
JP    FI   *    Japan                                    
KE    FI   *    Kenya                                    
KG    FI   *    Kyrgyz Republic           Ex-USSR (in .su domain)
KH    FI   *    Cambodia               
KI    FI   *    Kiribati              
KM    FI   *    Comoros              
KN    PFI  P C  St.Kitts Nevis Anguilla   
KP         P    Korea (North)                           
KR    FI   *    Korea (South)                          
KW    FI   *    Kuwait                 
KY    FI   *    Cayman Islands                           
KZ    FI   *    Kazakstan                 Ex-USSR
LA    FI   *    Laos                   
LB    FI   *    Lebanon                                  
LC    FI   *    Saint Lucia                         
LI    FI   *    Liechtenstein                      
LK    FI   *    Sri Lanka                                
LR    FI   *    Liberia               
LS    FI   *    Lesotho                                  
LT    FI   *    Lithuania                 Ex-USSR        
LU    FI   *    Luxembourg                            
LV    FI   *    Latvia                    Ex-USSR     
LY   PFI   * C  Libya                 
MA    FI   *    Morocco                                  
MC    FI   *    Monaco               
MD    FI   * C  Moldova                   Ex-USSR
MG    FI   *    Madagascar                              
MH           C  Marshall Islands       
MK    FI   *    Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic Of)                 
ML    FI   *    Mali                                    
MM         *    Myanmar                
MN    FI   *    Mongolia                                
MO    FI   *    Macau                          
MP    FI   * C  Northern Mariana Islands
MQ    FI   *    Martinique (French)     
MR    FI   *    Mauritania          
MS           C  Montserrat           
MT    FI   *    Malta                  
MU    FI   * C  Mauritius                               
MV    FI   *    Maldives              
MW    FI   *    Malawi               
MX    FI   *    Mexico                                   
MY    FI   *    Malaysia                    
MZ    FI   *    Mozambique                              
NA    FI   *    Namibia                                
NC    FI   *    New Caledonia (French)                     
NE    FI   *    Niger                  
NF    FI   * C  Norfolk Island         
NG    FI   F    Nigeria                                  
NI    FI   *    Nicaragua                                
NL    FI   *    Netherlands                           
NO    FI B *    Norway                                
NP    FI   *    Nepal                                    
NR              Nauru
NU    FI   * C  Niue                   
NZ    FI   *    New Zealand                          
OM    FI   *    Oman                  
PA    FI   *    Panama                                    
PE    FI   *    Peru                                     
PF    FI   *    Polynesia (French)                          
PG    FI   *    Papua New Guinea                  
PH    FI   *    Philippines                          
PK    FI   *    Pakistan                                
PL    FI   *    Poland                              
PM           C  St. Pierre & Miquelon  
PN              Pitcairn
PR    FI B *    Puerto Rico (US)                     
PS    FI   *    Palestinian Territories, Occupied
PT    FI   *    Portugal                                
PW    FI   *    Palau                 
PY    FI   *    Paraguay             
QA    FI   *    Qatar               
RE    FI   *    Reunion (France)             
RO    FI   *    Romania                               
RU    FI   *    Russian Federation        Ex-USSR         
RW    FI   *    Rwanda                  
SA    FI   *    Saudi Arabia                   
SB    FI   *    Solomon Islands        
SC    FI   *    Seychelles                               
SD    FI   *    Sudan                                   
SE    FI B *    Sweden                              
SG    FI   *    Singapore                        
SH    FI   * C  St. Helena             
SI    FI   *    Slovenia                              
SJ    FI   *    Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands (in .no domain)
SK    FI   *    Slovakia (Slovak Republic)                 
SL    FI   *    Sierra Leone                             
SM    FI   *    San Marino             
SN    FI   *    Senegal                                  
SO    FI   *    Somalia               
SR    FI   *    Suriname                                 
ST    FI   * C  St. Tome and Principe  
SU    FI   *    Soviet Union              Still used.     
SV    FI   *    El Salvador                                    
SY    FI   *    Syria                  
SZ    FI   *    Swaziland                                
TC    FI   * C  Turks & Caicos Islands
TD    FI   *    Chad                 
TF           C  French Southern Territories   
TG    FI   *    Togo                                     
TH    FI   *    Thailand                                
TJ    FI   * C  Tadjikistan               Ex-USSR 
TK              Tokelau      
TM    FI   *    Turkmenistan              Ex-USSR 
TN    FI   *    Tunisia                
TO    FI   *    Tonga                 
TP    FI   * C  East Timor          
TR    FI   *    Turkey                                  
TT    FI   *    Trinidad & Tobago                       
TV    FI   * C  Tuvalu                 
TW    FI   *    Taiwan                                   
TZ    FI   *    Tanzania                                
UA    FI   *    Ukraine                                 
UG    FI   *    Uganda                                  
UK    FI   *    United Kingdom            ISO 3166 is GB  
UM              US Minor outlying Islands
US    FI   *    United States             see note (4)   
UY    FI   *    Uruguay                                 
UZ    FI   *    Uzbekistan                Ex-USSR
VA    FI   *    Vatican City State                      
VC         P    St.Vincent & Grenadines              
VE    FI   *    Venezuela                         
VG    FI   * C  Virgin Islands (British) 
VI    FI   *    Virgin Islands (US)                     
VN    FI   *    Vietnam                                 
VU    FI   *    Vanuatu                                 
WF              Wallis & Futuna Islands
WS    FI   * C  Western Samoa        
YE    FI   *    Yemen                 
YT              Mayotte
YU    FI   *    Yugoslavia               
ZA    FI   *    South Africa                            
ZM    FI   *    Zambia                     intermittent    
ZW    FI   *    Zimbabwe                                  

See Note [5] for the next top level domains (whois.internic.net):

ARPA        *  used for reverse-mapping in IPv4
COM    FI   *  Commercial                 whois.internic.net
EDU    FI B *  Educational                whois.internic.net
GOV    FI   *  Government                 whois.nic.gov
INT    FI   *  International field                 
MIL    FI   *  US Military                whois.nic.mil
NET    FI   *  Network                    whois.internic.net
ORG    FI   *  Non-Profit Organization    www.pir.org

New Top Level Domains 

AERO   FI   *  Air Transport Industry     http://www.nic.aero
BIZ    FI   *  Businesses                 http://www.nic.biz
COOP   FI   *  Non-profit cooperatives    http://www.coop
INFO   FI   *  Unrestricted Use           http://www.afilias.info
MUSEUM FI   *  Museums                    http://www.nic.museum
NAME   FI   *  For regist. by individuals http://www.nic.name
PRO    FI   *  Acct, lawyrs & physicians  http://www.nic.pro

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DISCLAIMER: while every effort is made to provide accurate information,
this list is not guaranteed to be accurate. This document is in NO WAY
an official document. The information given should not be used as a basis
for routing tables but only as general end-user information. This is a
voluntary effort. I would appreciate greatly if errors/omissions could
be pointed out to me and they will be corrected in the next release. 
The information included in this document implies no view whatsoever
regarding questions of sovereignty or the status of any place listed.

-- 
Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond, Ph.D. |--> Global Information Highway Limited
Phone: +44 (0)7956 84 1113 | http://www.gih.com/ | E-mail: <ocl@gih.com>
Fax  : +44 (0)20 7937 7666 |   Always 60 seconds ahead of the past...

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Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM