A top-level domain (TLD) is the last segment of the domain name. The TLD is the part that follows immediately after the “dot” symbol. Top-level domains are mainly classified into two categories: generic TLDs and country-specific TLDs. While the former can be used by any web address worldwide (like .com, .net., or .org), the latter is typically reserved for specific countries (like .uk for United Kingdom, .ca for Canada, or .au for Australia).
Your specified TLD “XN—YGBI2AMMX” falls into the category of internationalized country code top-level domains (IDN ccTLDs). The “xn—” prefix is part of the Punycode encoding used to convert languages not written with the Latin alphabet, in this case, Arabic.
The “XN—YGBI2AMMX” is the punycode representation of the Arabic script version of the ccTLD for the State of Palestine, “.falasteen”. This TLD “XN—YGBI2AMMX”, is therefore specific to Palestine but written in a machine-readable format. The purpose of the Punycode system is to enable languages that use different scripts, such as Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, etc., to be represented in the domain name system, which was initially established primarily for Latin characters.
The “.falasteen” (.فلسطين) domain was officially delegated by ICANN in 2010, with the first registration under this TLD taking place in 2015. ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers is a nonprofit organization responsible for coordinating the maintenance and procedures of several databases related to the namespaces and numerical spaces of the Internet, ensuring the network’s stable and secure operation.
One of the websites that use this top level domain is The Palestinian National Authority (.فلسطين), which is the interim self-government body that exercises partial civil control over the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank.
Please note, to view and accurately read these domain names, your browser and computer system need to have the necessary language support.
Sources used:
1. ICANN: Delegation of the .фи (xn—80aeecgdf5ai) domain representing Serbia in Cyrillic to the Republic of Serbia Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications https://www.icann.org/resources/board-material/resolutions-2021-03-18-en
2. The evolving anatomy of the DNS. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1603.01979.pdf
3. Internet Assigned Numbers Authority: Report on the Delegation of the .ФАЛАСТІН (“Palestine” in Arabic) domain representing Palestine in Arabic to the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology of the Palestinian National Authority
https://www.iana.org/reports/2010/falasteen-report-16nov2010.html
1. ICANN Wiki: https://icannwiki.org/.xn—ygbi2ammx\_(.فلسطين)
