.us

.us
Introduced	1985
TLD type	Country code top-level domain
Status	Active
Registry	Neustar
Sponsor	United States Department of Commerce
Intended use	Entities connected with United States
Actual use	American business use of its own country code top level domain (ccTLD) is fast growing in popularity
Registration restrictions	U.S. nexus requirement can be enforced by challenge, but seldom is
Structure	Originally registrations were within complex, 3rd or 4th level hierarchy, but currently direct second-level registrations are allowed; kids.us permits 3rd-level registrations for child-friendly sites
Documents	RFC 1480; USDoC agreements with Neustar
Dispute policies	usTLD Dispute Resolution Policy (usDRP)
Website	nic.us

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.us is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United States, established in 1985. Registrants of .us domains must be United States citizens, residents, or organizations, or a foreign entity with a presence in the United States. Most registrants in the country have registered for .com, .net, .org and other gTLDs, rather than .us, which has traditionally primarily been used by many state and local governments (although any entity had the option of registering a .us domain). In particular, the domains .gov and .mil have been reserved for U.S. government usage.

The original administrator of .us was Jon Postel of the Information Sciences Institute at the University of Southern California. He administered .us under a sub-contract USC/ISI had from SRI International (who held the .us and the Generic top-level domains contract with the United States Department of Defense) and later Network Solutions (who held the .us and the Generic top-level domains contract with the National Science Foundation). Registrants could only register third-level domains or higher in a geographic and organizational hierarchy. The vast majority of the geographic sub-domains in .us were delegated to various private entities and .us registrants register with the delegated administrator for the level they wish to register in, not directly with the .us administrator. Unfortunately this means obtaining a geographic sub-domain requires contacting the delegate, who may or may not be professional or helpful.

From April 2002, second-level domains became available for registration. The .us domain is currently administered by NeuStar Inc. under a United States Department of Commerce contract.

Since the official release of .us as a second-level domain, it has been adopted and developed by a number of private corporations and local citizenry. The .us country code is no longer in the exclusive realm of only governmental agencies.

1 State abbreviated second-level domains
- 1.1 Territories and possessions
2 Other administered second-level domains
3 Locality-based namespaces
4 Restrictions on use of .us domains
5 See also
6 External links

These are derived from postal abbreviations for the states.

.ak.us: Alaska
.al.us: Alabama
.ar.us: Arkansas
.az.us: Arizona
.ca.us: California
.co.us: Colorado
.ct.us: Connecticut
.de.us: Delaware
.fl.us: Florida
.ga.us: Georgia
.hi.us: Hawaii
.ia.us: Iowa
.id.us: Idaho
.il.us: Illinois
.in.us: Indiana
.ks.us: Kansas
.ky.us: Kentucky
.la.us: Louisiana
.ma.us: Massachusetts
.md.us: Maryland
.me.us: Maine
.mi.us: Michigan
.mn.us: Minnesota
.mo.us: Missouri
.ms.us: Mississippi
.mt.us: Montana
.nc.us: North Carolina
.nd.us: North Dakota
.ne.us: Nebraska
.nh.us: New Hampshire
.nj.us: New Jersey
.nm.us: New Mexico
.nv.us: Nevada
.ny.us: New York
.oh.us: Ohio
.ok.us: Oklahoma
.or.us: Oregon
.pa.us: Pennsylvania
.ri.us: Rhode Island
.sc.us: South Carolina
.sd.us: South Dakota
.tn.us: Tennessee
.tx.us: Texas
.ut.us: Utah
.va.us: Virginia
.vt.us: Vermont
.wa.us: Washington
.wi.us: Wisconsin
.wv.us: West Virginia
.wy.us: Wyoming

.as.us: American Samoa (also has .as country code)
.dc.us: District of Columbia
.gu.us: Guam (also has .gu country code)
.pr.us: Puerto Rico (also has .pr country code)
.vi.us: U.S. Virgin Islands (also has .vi country code)

.dni.us: distributed national institutes
.fed.us: federal government agencies (an alternative to .gov)
.isa.us: interstate agency (only used for the Interstate Mining Compact Commission, imcc.isa.us)
.kids.us: content "suitable for children under 13"
.nsn.us: Native sovereign nations (federally recognized Native American tribes)

Since direct registration of second-level names by individuals and companies has been available since 2002, there are some second-level names which permit unofficial third-level registrations. These have included blog.us for use by bloggers, and protozoa.us for sites suitable for viewing by bacteria (a parody of the kids.us domain for child-suitable sites). These do not appear to be active at the present time.

The general format is "<organization-name>.<locality>.<state>.us", where <state> is a state's two-letter postal abbreviation.

Three values of <organization-name> have specific meanings:

ci: city government agencies (ci.<locality>.<state>.us)
town: town government agencies (town.<locality>.<state>.us)
vil: village government agencies (vil.<locality>.<state>.us)
co: county government agencies (co.<locality>.<state>.us)

Ordinarily, a <locality> is a city, county, parish, or township. Some other names may replace the <locality>:

state: state government agencies (<organization-name>.state.<state>.us)
dst: government agencies in administrative districts (<organization-name>.dst.<state>.us)
cog: councils of government (federations of cities or counties) (<organization-name>.cog.<state>.us)
k12: public elementary or secondary schools (<school-name>.k12.<state>.us)
pvt.k12: private elementary or secondary schools (<school-name>.pvt.k12.<state>.us)
cc: community colleges (<school-name>.cc.<state>.us)
tec: technical and vocational schools (<school-name>.tec.<state>.us)
lib: public libraries (<library-name>.lib.<state>.us)
mus: museums (<museum-name>.mus.<state>.us)
gen: general independent entities (groups not fitting into the above categories) (<organization-name>.gen.<state>.us)

As noted above, registration of a subdomain in this space may depend on the cooperation of a private delegate. Many mainstream registration companies do not offer domains in this space, which may account for the low utilization rate.

Under .US Nexus Requirements .US domains may be registered only by the following qualified entities:

Any United States citizen or resident,
Any United States entity, such as organizations or corporations,
Any foreign entity or organization with a bona fide presence in the United States

To ensure that these requirements are met, NeuStar frequently conducts "spot checks" on registrant information.

To prevent anonymous registrations that do not meet these requirements, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has ruled that registrants of .us domains may not secure private domain name registration [1].

Registrants are required to provide complete contact information with no omissions. Additional information is also required. [2]

Domain names corresponding to 5- or 9-digit US postal codes or telephone numbers are reserved; a project is underway at zipcode.us to provide locality-specific information under a full set of 5-digit postal-code domains using a format like 90210.us.