.gov

The domain name "gov" is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from 'government', indicating its restricted use by government entities in the United States. The gov domain is administered by the General Services Administration (GSA), an Independent agencies of the United States governmentindependent agency of the Federal government of the United StatesUnited States federal government. The Uniform Resource LocatorURL for registration services is http://www.dotgov.gov.

The U.S. is the only country that has a government-specific top-level domain in addition to its country-code top-level domain. This is a result from the origins of the Internet as a U.S. federal government-sponsored research network (see ARPANET and National Science Foundation Network). Other countries typically delegate a second-level domain for this purpose.

Some U.S. federal agencies use fed.us rather than gov. The United States Department of DefenseDepartment of Defense and its subsidiary organizations use the .milmil sTLD. Some U.S. governmental entities use other domains, such as .comcom domains by the United States Postal Service (which uses both and for the same website, although it only advertises the com address), and the United States Army's recruitment website (, this trend is repeated at the recruitment websites of the other branches of the U.S. military).

Additionally, some technically private organizations having some formal association with the federal government make use of gov, such as the Federal Reserve System ().

All governments in the U.S. are allowed to apply for delegations in gov, such as for the city of Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, for the county of Loudoun, Virginia and for the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state)Georgia. This was not always true; under an earlier policy, only federal agencies were allowed to use the domain, and agencies beneath cabinet level were required to use subdomains of their parent agency. There is a lack of consistency in addresses of state and local government sites, with some using gov, some us, some using both (the Commonwealth (U.S. state)Commonwealth of Pennsylvania uses 'www.pa.gov', 'www.pennsylvania.gov' and 'www.state.pa.us' for the same web site) and still others in 'com', 'org' or other TLDs.

Availability
Use of the gov domain is restricted to government entities. According to GSA guidelines, this includes U.S. Governmental United States Cabinetdepartments, programs, and agencies on the federal level; federally recognized tribes (referred to by the GSA as Native Sovereign Nations, which must use the suffix -NSN.gov); State governmental entities and programs; cities and townships represented by an elected body of officials; County (United States)counties and civil parishparishes represented by an elected body of officials; and United States territoryU.S. territories.

Authorization
To register a gov domain, a letter of authorization must be submitted to the GSA. For federal agencies, the authorization must be submitted by cabinet-level chief information officer (CIO). For state governments, authorization from the Governor (United States)governor or state CIO is required. Domain names for cities require authorization from the mayor or equivalent official; for counties, authorization may be submitted by county commissioners or equivalent officials, or by the highest-ranking county official. For Native Sovereign Nations, the authorization must come from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Naming conventions
The GSA provides Style guideguidelines for naming conventionsnaming of second-level domains, such as those used by state and local governments. For states, the domain name must include the full state name or postal abbreviation, and the abbreviation must not be obscured by inclusion in a larger word. For example, inval"id".gov for Idaho would be an unacceptable domain name.

Policy
Policy regarding the gov domain is laid out in 41 Code of Federal RegulationsCFR Part 102-173, a Final Rule promulgated by the GSA in the Federal Register on March 28, 2003.

States in GOV
As of November 2009, all states in the U.S. have operational domains in gov:
(
Alabama
and
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Alaska

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Arizona

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Arkansas
and
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California
and
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Colorado

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Connecticut

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Delaware

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Florida
(s to )
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Georgia
and
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Guam

-
Hawaii
(s to )
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Idaho

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Illinois

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Indiana

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Iowa

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Kansas
and
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Kentucky
and
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Louisiana

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Maryland

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Massachusetts

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Michigan

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Minnesota
(s to )
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Mississippi

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Missouri

-
Montana
and
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Nebraska

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Nevada

-
New Hampshire
and
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New Jersey
and
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New Mexico

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New York

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North Carolina
and
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North Dakota

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Ohio

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Oklahoma

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Oregon

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Pennsylvania
and
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Rhode Island

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South Carolina

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South Dakota

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Tennessee
and
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Texas
(s to )
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Utah

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Vermont

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Virginia

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Washington
and
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West Virginia

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Wisconsin

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Wyoming

)

The District of Columbia follows this trend with

References


External links

RFC 920 defined .com and the other original top-level domains.
RFC 2146 (U.S. Government Internet Domain Names)


en.wikipedia.org