Geographic top-level domain
A geographic top-level domain (often shortened as geographic TLD or geoTLD) is any of an unofficial group of top-level domains in the Domain Name System of the Internet using the name of or invoking an association with a geographical, geopolitical, ethnic, linguistic or cultural community. The IANA does not recognize these domains as their own group within the Root Zone Database, rather classifying them as generic top-level domains. , several examples of geographic TLDs exist: codice_1, enabling London businesses, organizations, and individuals to establish an online naming presence, codice_2 (for Asia), codice_3 (for Rio  de Janeiro city), codice_4 (for Québec province), codice_5 which is a sponsored top-level domain intended to be used to highlight the Catalan language and culture. .eu is a country code top-level domain, since "EU" is a reserved country code for the European Union in ISO 3166-1. In 2017, an interest group focused on geographic TLDs was formed and joined as a 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. Proposals. Examples of proposed top-level domains in this category are: Applications. On June 13, 2012 ICANN revealed nearly 2,000 applications for new top-level domains, which were expected to go live throughout 2014 after thorough examination. Many of these are geographic, including: Internationalized country codes. An internationalized country code is similar to a GeoTLD, with two differences: it is a domain used exclusively for a sovereign state. The other difference  is that an internationalized country code is considered a ccTLD and not a GeoTLD. More free geographic ccTLD have been applied for and will be active in 2013.