Which Countries Have the Most Popular Top-Level Domains in the World?

Did you know that the first ever domain name registered was Symbolics.com on March 15^th, 1985? Symbolics was a computer manufacturer, but now the website serves as a museum of sorts for “firsts” in technology. Since then, registered domains have exploded across the globe, with countries adopting unique extensions called country code top-level domains, or ccTLDs. The team at Nominus.com has created a comprehensive guide to the most powerful top-level domains around the world, which can provide fascinating insights into how the internet has been built, which countries have the most expansive internet presence, and which domains may be the most influential for your needs:
 

Do Countries Own Domains?

ICANN says no, but there have been conflicts over ownership and even multi-million-dollar sales, which we will explore a bit later. For now, let’s explore some of the major country code top-level domains. What is a country code top-level domain? These domains are dedicated to countries, territories, and sovereign states. Every country code top-level domain contains two letters. Read on to learn more about international domain names:
 

North American ccTLDs and the Total Number of Active Domains in Each:

The biggest country code top-level domain in North America is .ca, which has 3,150,895 active domains associated with it. Is .com or .ca better? That depends on your objective. Google.ca will favor addresses containing .ca, but if the objective is to reach U.S. audiences or worldwide audiences, .com is typically a better bet.  
 

South American ccTLDs and the Total Number of Active Domains in Each:

The most popular country code top-level domain in South America is .br, which is associated with Brazil. Introduced in 1989, it is extremely popular in Brazil and provides the largest Portuguese-language Web presence.
 

European ccTLDs and the Total Number of Active Domains in Each:

The country code top-level domain with the most active domains in Europe is .de, which is also the second most popular top-level domain in the world. In many Romance languages (Spanish, French, Portuguese, etc.), the word “de” is equivalent to “of” in English, and this is exploited in domain registrations using .de for Romance-language Web hosts offering customized sites, such as elforo.de (theforum.of), encoding the site name into the URL, such as elforo.de/wikipedia, meaning theforum.of/wikipedia.
 

African ccTLDs and the Total Number of Active Domains in Each:

The biggest country top-level domain in Africa is .ga, which is associated with Gabon. In 2013, the manager of the domain, Gabon Telecom, formed a partnership with the international domain registrar Freenom to offer registrations of .ga domains for free. These quickly became some of the most popular free domain names offered by Freenom and Safecow.
 

Asian ccTLDs and the Total Number of Active Domains in Each:

The largest country code top-level domain in Asia is .cn, which is associated with China. Established in 1990, it is sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
 

Oceanian ccTLDs and the Total Number of Active Domains in Each:

The most popular ccTLD in Oceania is .tk, which is associated with Tokelau, an island territory of New Zealand. In fact, it is among the most popular domain names of any country! Why is .tk so popular? The government of Tokelau partnered with communication company Teletok to offer free domain registrations to any individual, leading to an influx of users. However, free is not always good. It became a popular TLD used by scammers, especially for phishing attacks.
 
Another fun fact about ccTLDs in Oceania is linked to Tuvalu, a tiny island nation of 11,000 people. In 1995, Tuvalu was assigned the ccTLD .tv — little did they know what a cash cow it would become thanks to the rapid rise of online video streaming. In 2022, Tuvalu established a deal with a popular web-hosting company that will earn it an estimated $10 million a year for leasing out .tv to companies such as Twitch. With its first $1 million profit, Tuvalu was able to cover membership fees to join the United Nations. It’s incredible how a tiny sequence of letters can be so powerful!
 

What About Antarctica?

Does Antarctica have Internet service? Yes! Believe it or not, Antarctica even has its own ccTLD despite not being a country. With only 102 active domains, .aq is reserved for organizations that work in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean.
 

An Overview of Top-Level Domains

Now that we have explored the biggest country code top-level domains around the world, let’s delve into more general knowledge about top-level domains, including the different types of TLDs, the most popular top-level domains overall, and which top-level domains are the most trusted and sought after.
 

 What Is a Top-Level Domain?

A top-level domain is a domain that is ranked at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. In more simple terms, a TLD is everything that follows the last period or dot of a domain name.
 

 What Is an Example of a Top-Level Domain?

The most prevalent top-level domain is .com, which has the most current active domains attached to it. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) maintains authority over all top-level domains on the Internet and assigns responsibility for these to various organizations. For example, the American company VeriSign operates all .com and .net top-level domains. Top-level domains can also help indicate the purpose of the domain names that proceed them.
 

 What Are the Different Types of TLDs?

There are five official types of top-level domains:

• Generic TLDs: Generic TLDs (gTLDs) include some of the most common, such as .com, .net, and .org. The creation of new gTLDs was once heavily regulated by ICANN, but these restrictions were relaxed in 2010, leading to an influx of lesser-known TLDs such as .top and .xyz.

• Country Code TLDs: Country-code TLDs (ccTLDs) are dedicated for use by countries, territories, and sovereign states. Some examples of a country code top-level domain include .au for Australia and .jp for Japan.

• Sponsored TLDs: Sponsored TLDs (sTLDs) represent ethnic, geographical, or professional communities. Each one has a designated sponsor; for example, .app is intended for the developer community and is sponsored by Google. Another one is .gov, overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

• Infrastructural TLDs: This category only includes one TLD: .arpa. It is named after DARPA, the U.S. military research organization that helped shape the modern Internet. In fact, .arpa was the first top-level domain of all time. It is now used exclusively for infrastructural duties such as reverse DNS lookups.

• Reserved TLDs: Reserved top-level domains are domains that cannot be used without permission from the original creator. They are typically used for operational and engineering reasons, such as private testing, experiments, documentation examples, and demonstrations.
   

How Many Top-Level Domains Are There?

According to ICANN’s master list, there are 1,486 top-level domains.
 

What Are the Best Top-Level Domains?

According to an experiment conducted by GrowthBadger, .com domains are 33% more memorable than other domains, and this is considered the most trusted TLD. When people try to recall a URL, they are 3.8 times more likely to assume that it ends in .com.
 

What Are the Most Common Domain Extensions in the World?

What is the most popular domain extension? It is common knowledge that the domain extension .com is the most often used and trusted. Here are the 50 biggest top-level domains based on the number of current active domains attached to them:

1. .com — 159,902,632 active domains

2. .de — 16,141,315 active domains

3. .net — 13,170,783 active domains

4. .org — 10,614,272 active domains

5. .uk — 10,593,406 active domains

6. .cn — 8,980,611 active domains

7. .ga — 7,049,929 active domains

8. .nl — 5,635,081 active domains

9. .cf — 5,383,367 active domains

10. .ml — 5,344,979 active domains

11. .tk — 5,041,535 active domains

12. .ru — 4,995,267 active domains

13. .br — 4,349,270 active domains

14. .gq — 4,307,508 active domains

15. .xyz — 4,130,573 active domains

16. .fr — 3,867,191 active domains

17. .eu — 3,664,237 active domains

18. .info — 3,653,720 active domains

19. .co — 3,396,167 active domains

20. .au — 3,255,646 active domains

21. .ca — 3,150,895 active domains

22. .it — 3,125,192 active domains

23. .in — 2,662,613 active domains

24. .ch — 2,375,786 active domains

25. .pl — 2,349,625 active domains

26. .es — 1,950,923 active domains

27. .online — 4,307,508 active domains

28. .us — 1,844,273 active domains

29. .top — 1,710,824 active domains

30. .jp — 1,6137,56 active domains

31. .biz — 1,425,740 active domains

32. .se — 1,408,367 active domains

33. .at — 1,401,807 active domains

34. .dk — 1,398,484 active domains

35. .cz — 1,374,684 active domains

36. .za — 1,264,492 active domains

37. .me — 1,196,876 active domains

38. .ir — 1,169,743 active domains

39. .icu — 1092501 active domains

40. .shop — 1,040,404 active domains

41. .kr — 1,012,638 active domains

42. .site — 1,007,427 active domains

43. .mx — 992,386 active domains

44. .hu — 852,097 active domains

45. .io — 847,444 active domains

46. .cc — 836,363 active domains

47. .club — 822,231 active domains

48. .no — 805,466 active domains

49. .cyou — 765,244 active domains

50. .store — 759,128 active domains

Every Country Code Top-Level Domain in the World Ranked by Number of Active Domains

Related: International Domain Name Registration, and Domain Registration.

Want to display this infographic on your website?
You can copy the below code and paste it into your website.