The top-level domain (TLD) “.xn—rhqv96g” is the TLD for websites which are written in Chinese characters. The string “xn—rhqv96g” represents “世界” in the Punycode ASCII encoding, which translates to “world” in English. This TLD is available to individuals, businesses, organizations and community groups, as a way to identify Chinese websites more readily on the internet.
To understand the story behind this somewhat cryptic string, we must explore the concept of Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). IDNs were developed to enable internet users around the world to navigate the web in their preferred language script. Previously, domain names could only be displayed in ASCII characters – the alphanumerical Latin character set perused by basic digital systems. This Anglo-centric model was a significant obstacle in making the internet more globally accessible.
To solve this issue, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) introduced the concept of IDN ccTLDs (country code Top-Level Domains). Basically, these are internet domain names that are represented by local language characters followed by ICANN’s obligatory ASCII-encoded characters. For example, these could include characters from non-Roman scripts, such as Arabic or Chinese characters (ICANN, 2017).
The ICANN approved the creation of “.xn—rhqv96g” (.世界) as an international top-level domain on 15th April 2009. Notably, Xin Net Corporation, a renowned Chinese domain name provider, participates actively in the distribution and service of this generic top-level domain (gTLD). The “.xn—rhqv96g” (.世界) encompass web content related to Chinese culture, Chinese products and services, and Chinese language based literature or discourse. It thus offers a unique platform to individuals and groups to have a more meaningful presence on the internet.
In context of some examples, www.新浪.世界 is a domain name of Sina, a prominent Chinese technology company. Here, “新浪” means “Sina” in Chinese and “.世界” represents the top-level domain in intent. Similarly, www.百度.世界 could be a potential domain name for Baidu, the leading Chinese search engine, where “百度” translates to “Baidu” (Verisign, 2021).
Sources:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. (2017). Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) | Generic (gTLDs) Top-Level Domains.
Verisign Inc. (2021). Internationalized Domain Name(IDN) | Verisign. Verisign Inc. Publication.
