The Top-Level Domain (TLD) “XN—XKC2AL3HYE2A” is an Internationalized Country Code Top-Level Domain (IDN ccTLD), representing Sri Lanka in the Sinhalese script.
To understand what this TLD signifies, we need to start with the basics. Top-Level Domains are the highest level of domain names on the internet, typically appearing at the end of a URL, like “.com,” “.org,” or “.net.” These TLDs are generally divided into two types— generic TLDs (gTLDs) and country-code TLDs (ccTLDs). A ccTLD represents specific geographic locations. For example, “.us” is for the United States and “.uk” for the United Kingdom.
Since the internet’s initiation, domain names were constrained to ASCII characters (the basic Latin alphabet, digits 0–9 and hyphen ‘-’ ). This created a barrier for languages that used non-Latin scripts, such as Arabic, Chinese, or Sinhalese. To cater to this issue, the Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) system was introduced. IDN allows internet users worldwide to navigate, communicate, and use the internet in their native languages, scripts and notations.
The TLD “XN—XKC2AL3HYE2A” denotes Sri Lanka’s IDN ccTLD in the Sinhalese language. In Sinhalese, it is represented as “.ලංකා” – a ccTLD reserved for Sri Lanka, per the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
IANA is responsible for overseeing and coordinating the global IP address space, protocol identifier assignments, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions (IANA, 2021).
The encoded string “XN—XKC2AL3HYE2A” follows the Punycode encoding system, used to represent Internationalized Domain Names. It helps convert Unicode characters to the limited character set recognized in network host names.
As examples, various entities use a domain name with this TLD to reach their Sinhalese-speaking audience in Sri Lanka. Schools, institutions, local businesses, and individuals in Sri Lanka using Sinhalese script can use this TLD.
To sum it up, the TLD “XN—XKC2AL3HYE2A” is more than a random series of characters. It’s part of a significant movement to make the internet more linguistically diverse and accessible. According to respective local language, scripts and notations, this revolutionizes how people use the internet.
Sources used:
1. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) – Sri Lanka (.LK) country-code delegation report, available at https://www.iana.org/reports/2010/lk-report-16apr2010.html
2. IANA Root Zone Database, available at: https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db
3. Punycode: A Bootstring encoding of Unicode for Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (IDNA), RFC (Request for Comments) 3492 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), available at: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3492.
