.ch is the

country code Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes ( geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

top-level domain A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

(

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 t ...

) for

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel, St. Gall ...

in the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned ...

of the

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

. Made available in 1987, only two years after .com, it is administered by SWITCH Information Technology Services. The domain ''ch'', as with other ccTLDs, is based on the ISO 3166-2 code for Switzerland derived from ''Confoederatio Helvetica'' (Helvetic Confederation),From the onlin
Historical Dictionary of Switzerland
/ref> the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of ...

name for the country, which was used because of its neutrality with regard to the four official languages of Switzerland. Second-level domain names must be at least three letters long. Two-letter subdomain names are restricted to the Swiss cantons, as well as the domain ch.ch of the Federal Chancellery of Switzerland. The only exception has been the former domain of the Expo.02 which was held in Switzerland, www.expo.02.ch. Registrations of internationalized domain names have been accepted since March 2004.

In the Chinese domain market

.ch has been of a rising interest to Chinese domain investors for several reasons. According to EuropeID.com, the domain .ch still has many valuable English keywords and short letter and number combinations left. A contributing factor may be because the majority of .ch registrations are in German, leaving many English words available. In addition, with 2 million domains under .ch being registered, most of the reserved domains have the European market in mind, allowing valuable domains for other languages such as Chinese keywords in the Latin script being registered at a normal price.

Domain hacks

The .ch domain is very popular in domain hacks, used to spell words and names that end in "ch": for example,

Techcrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approxima ...

's tcrn.ch. This phenomenon is not limited to English; to take another example, the domain scha.ch (''Schach,'' German for "

chess Chess is a board game between two players. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to distinguish it from related games, such as xiangqi (Chinese chess) and shogi (Japanese chess). The current form of the game emerged ...

") has been registered.

.swiss

The Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM) has begun registering .swiss domains as of 7 September 2015. This is meant to augment the traditional .ch TLD. Applicants must currently have a "registered place of business and a physical administrative base in Switzerland" to apply.

References

External links

IANA .ch whois information

.ch NIC registry
Country code top-level domains Communications in Switzerland Council of European National Top Level Domain Registries members Computer-related introductions in 1987 Internet in Switzerland Internet properties established in 1987 {{compu-domain-stub sv:Toppdomän#C