.ax is the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

country code top-level domain A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all tw ...

(

ccTLD A country code top-level domain (ccTLD) is an Internet top-level domain generally used or reserved for a country, sovereign state, or dependent territory identified with a country code. All ASCII ccTLD identifiers are two letters long, and all tw ...

) of

Åland Åland ( , ; ) is an Federacy, autonomous and Demilitarized zone, demilitarised region of Finland. Receiving its autonomy by a 1920 decision of the League of Nations, it is the smallest region of Finland by both area () and population (30,54 ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, introduced in 2006.

History

Previously, most Åland websites were under the .aland.fi

subdomain In the Domain Name System (DNS) hierarchy, a subdomain is a domain that is a part of another (main) domain. For example, if a domain offered an online store as part of their website it might use the subdomain. Overview The Domain Name System ...

. On 17 February 2006, the Finnish parliament approved a modification of the laws regulating Finnish domain names to include the .ax top-level domain. During a three-year period, the aland.fi subdomain was phased out while .ax was used in parallel; no new registrations under the aland.fi subdomain were to be accepted, and all owners of domains under the aland.fi subdomain would receive registrations for the corresponding .ax domain. On 17 March 2006, Finnish president

Tarja Halonen Tarja Kaarina Halonen (, born 24 December 1943) is a Finns, Finnish politician who served as the 11th president of Finland, and the first and to date only woman to hold the position, from 2000 to 2012. She first rose to prominence as a lawyer wit ...

signed the bill into law, effective as of 27 March. The government of Åland began accepting registrations immediately following the changing of the law. On 9 June 2006,

ICANN The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN ) is a global multistakeholder group and nonprofit organization headquartered in the United States responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several dat ...

approved delegating the .ax top-level domain to the government of Åland. The .ax domain was added to the root zone on 21 June 2006, and became active on 15 August 2006.Ansökan om domännamn
The government of Åland's domain registration website The code ax itself comes from the

ISO 3166 ISO 3166 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, special areas of geographical interest, and their principal subdivisions (e.g., pro ...

standard, and was assigned to Åland in 2004. The letter X is not included in any major or locally used language, but other possible codes were already taken, e.g.

.al .al is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Albania. It is administered by the Electronic and Postal Communications Authority of Albania (AKEP). AKEP recommends that .al domain registrations be performed with one of the AKEP ...

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

, .ad by

Andorra Andorra, officially the Principality of Andorra, is a Sovereignty, sovereign landlocked country on the Iberian Peninsula, in the eastern Pyrenees in Southwestern Europe, Andorra–France border, bordered by France to the north and Spain to A ...

, and .an by what was at the time the

Netherlands Antilles The Netherlands Antilles (, ; ), also known as the Dutch Antilles, was a constituent Caribbean country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands consisting of the islands of Saba (island), Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten in the Lesser Antilles, ...

. Since 5 September 2016, anyone worldwide is permitted to register domain names under the .ax TLD.

References

*
Adopted Resolutions
special meeting of the board of

External links

IANA .ax whois information

.ax domain whois
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ax Communications in Åland Mass media in Åland Country code top-level domains Communications in Finland