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The Most Remote Island in the World is Home to Seals, Seabirds, and an Internet Top-Level Domain (ieee.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Bouvet Island has little to offer. The most remote island in the world is fewer than 20 square miles in size, and it's almost entirely covered by a glacier. Long ago, it was an active volcano, but those fiery days have long since passed. Now, it's home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds, a Norwegian research station, and its own top-level internet domain.
Top-level domains serve as part of the Internet's architecture. Aside from generic domains like .com and .edu, every country has a specific two-letter domain assigned to it. The United Kingdom, for example, uses .uk; Japan uses .jp. The United States has .us, though it's not widely used. The original idea was that each country could manage the websites registered by individuals and organizations within its borders by issuing them websites that use their country-specific domain.
But here's the weird thing about Bouvet Island having its own top-level domain: It's uninhabited. It's always been uninhabited. Located in the southern Atlantic, the closest land to Bouvet Island is the coast of Antarctica, 1,100 miles to the south. The closest inhabited land is the island Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory located 1,400 miles to the north (Interestingly enough, Tristan da Cunha does not have its own top-level domain).
Top-level domains serve as part of the Internet's architecture. Aside from generic domains like .com and .edu, every country has a specific two-letter domain assigned to it. The United Kingdom, for example, uses .uk; Japan uses .jp. The United States has .us, though it's not widely used. The original idea was that each country could manage the websites registered by individuals and organizations within its borders by issuing them websites that use their country-specific domain.
But here's the weird thing about Bouvet Island having its own top-level domain: It's uninhabited. It's always been uninhabited. Located in the southern Atlantic, the closest land to Bouvet Island is the coast of Antarctica, 1,100 miles to the south. The closest inhabited land is the island Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory located 1,400 miles to the north (Interestingly enough, Tristan da Cunha does not have its own top-level domain).
The Most Remote Island in the World is Home to Seals, Seabirds, and an Internet Top-Level Domain .bv country code
.africa Domain Name
.africa Domain Name
.com and .edu, every country has a specific two-letter domain assigned to it. The United Kingdom, for example, uses .uk; Japan uses .jp. The United States has .us, though it’s not widely used. The original idea was that each country could manage the websites registered by individuals and organizations within its borders by issuing them websites that use their country-specific domain.
.bv domain—a domain which is not in use and not open to registration?
Bouvet Island's most valuable resource might be its untapped
By Michael Koziol
2013 NASA Earth Observatory image showing Bouvet Island, and the ice that covers about 94 percent of the island year round.
Image: Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon/NASA Earth Observatory
Ice covers about 94 percent of Bouvet Island year-round.
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Bouvet Island has little to offer. The most remote island in the world is fewer than 20 square miles in size, and it’s almost entirely covered by a glacier. Long ago, it was an active volcano, but those fiery days have long since passed. Now, it’s home to hundreds of thousands of seabirds, a Norwegian research station, and its own top-level internet domain.
Top-level domains serve as part of the Internet’s architecture. Aside from generic domains like
An animated gif zooming out on Bouvet Island to give a sense of it's location in the world.
Gif: Google Maps/Google Earth/IEEE Spectrum
Where in the world is Bouvet Island?
But here’s the weird thing about Bouvet Island having its own top-level domain: It’s uninhabited. It’s always been uninhabited. Located in the southern Atlantic, the closest land to Bouvet Island is the coast of Antarctica, 1,100 miles to the south. The closest inhabited land is the island Tristan da Cunha, a British overseas territory located 1,400 miles to the north (Interestingly enough, Tristan da Cunha does not have its own top-level domain).
So how did Bouvet Island end up with the
It starts with the United Nations. The UN’s Statistics Division maintains a publication called the Standard Country or Area Codes for Statistical Use. Published since 1970 and also known as the M49 standard, the UN’s primary intention is to use its three-digit codes to group nations and geographic regions for statistical analysis.
Since 1974, the International Organization for Standardization, an international standards body just as unaffiliated with management of the Internet as the UN, has used the M49 standard to develop its own standard, ISO 3166. There are several lists, but the important one for now is ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, a very alphanumerical way of naming what is essentially a list of two-letter codes to represent “countries, dependencies, and other areas of particular geopolitical interest,” according to ISO. Does “two-letter codes” sound familiar?
We’re almost through the briar-patch of organizations and lists that resulted in the current set of country-specific domains. Since 1988, the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has managed the web’s Domain Name System—basically the system that converts our plaintext addresses like spectrum.ieee.org into the actual numerical IP addresses that computers use to navigate to specific sites. As such, IANA is also responsible for managing top-level domains. For countries, IANA pulled from ISO 3166-1 alpha-2, in order to avoid the messy business of being an Intern