.gov
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox Top level domain The domain name gov is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. The name is derived from the word government, indicating its restricted use by government entities. The TLD is administered by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA),<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a component of the United States Department of Homeland Security.
gov is one of the original six top-level domains, defined in RFC 920.<ref name="RFC 920">Template:Cite news</ref> Though "originally intended for any kind of government office or agency",<ref name="RFC 1591">Template:Cite news</ref> only U.S.-based government entities may register gov domain names, a result of the Internet originating as a U.S. government-sponsored research network.
Other countries typically delegate a second-level domain for government operations on their country-code top-level domain (ccTLD); for example, gov.uk is the domain for the Government of the United Kingdom, and gc.ca is the domain for the Government of Canada. The United States is the only country that has a government-specific top-level domain in addition to its ccTLD (us), a direct result of the United States federal government's role in the creation of the Internet.
gov domains are registered at get.gov.
History
gov is one of the original top-level domains created in 1984<ref>RFC 920, Domain Requirements, J. Postel, J. Reynolds, The Internet Society (October 1984)</ref> (the other five being Template:Mono, Template:Mono, Template:Mono, Template:Mono, and Template:Mono). The first site registered was Template:Mono in June 1985.<ref>Template:Cite IETF</ref>
Beginning in 1997, the General Services Administration (GSA) began administering gov. In February 2011, the GSA selected Verisign to manage the registry services, replacing Native Technologies, Inc.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Responsibility for the TLD was transferred to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) under the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act of 2020,<ref name="DOTGOV Act of 2020">Template:Cite web</ref> part of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021.
In January 2023, CISA selected Cloudflare to replace Verisign in providing registry services. Cloudflare will also provide authoritative DNS services for the gov domain.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Use
Many governments in the United States use a gov domain, though most use .us (e.g., leg.state.nv.us), .com (e.g., myflorida.com), .org (e.g., lacity.org), or other TLDs (e.g., senate.mn).<ref name="State legislature websites, compared">Template:Cite web</ref> The full list of registered gov domains is published at get.gov/data.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
During GSA's administration of gov, registration and annual renewal fees peaked at $400 per year.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> When CISA began managing the TLD in April 2021, all fees were removed.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Federal Executive branch policy requires the use of gov for civilian agencies,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> but some U.S. government-related websites use other domain names, including the United States Postal Service (e.g., usps.com) and various recruiting websites for armed services (e.g., goarmy.com). The United States Department of Defense and its subsidiary organizations typically use the mil sTLD instead of gov.
Eligibility
U.S.-based government organizations and publicly controlled entities are eligible to obtain a gov domain. This includes federal, state, local, or territorial government, as well as any tribal government recognized by the federal government or a state government.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
To register a gov domain, an authorization letter must be submitted to CISA. The signer of the letter differs by entity type, but it is typically an agency's head, chief information officer (CIO), or highest-ranking or elected official.
Historically, only U.S. federal government agencies were allowed to register a gov domain. In May 2002, GSA proposed a change that would open registration to state, local, and tribal governments in the U.S.,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a change that went into effect in March 2003.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In November 2019, before the transfer of gov to CISA, GSA's authorization process was shown to be weak after someone impersonated the mayor of Exeter, Rhode Island in an authorization letter and successfully gained control of exeterri.gov. In response, GSA said it had implemented additional fraud prevention controls, and CISA advocated for transferring the TLD from GSA.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Policy
The DOTGOV Act requires that CISA maintain requirements that "minimize the risk of gov Internet domains whose names could mislead or confuse users".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> These include:
- Requested names must correspond with the requesting entity's organization's name or services.
- Generic terms are reserved for federal agencies, though generic words can be combined with state or local municipality names.
- Most non-federal domain types require a two-letter United States postal abbreviations or state name equivalent, though exceptions are made. Rules have been established for municipalities whose names are unique, who are well-known, or that are among the most populous cities and counties in the nation.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The Act also requires that gov domains not be used for political campaign or commercial purposes, and that domains are registered only by authorized individuals.
gov has been used to serve certain policy goals. As an action following Executive Order 13571,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> President Barack Obama restricted executive branch agencies from registering new gov domains in an attempt to eliminate unnecessary, redundant, or outdated sites.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> US government agencies used the gov registrar to make it easy for new registrants to opt-in to HTTPS preloading <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and to make it easier for the public to report potential security issues.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Use by states and territories
Template:As of, all states, the District of Columbia, and all territories except for the Northern Mariana Islands have operational domains in gov:
| State or territory | Domain |
|---|---|
| Alabama | al.gov and alabama.gov |
| Alaska | alaska.gov |
| American Samoa | americansamoa.gov |
| Arizona | az.gov and arizona.gov |
| Arkansas | ar.gov and arkansas.gov |
| California | ca.gov |
| Colorado | co.gov and colorado.gov |
| Connecticut | ct.gov |
| Delaware | de.gov and delaware.gov |
| District of Columbia | dc.gov |
| Florida | fl.gov, florida.gov and myflorida.gov |
| Georgia | ga.gov and georgia.gov |
| Guam | guam.gov |
| Hawaii | hawaii.gov and ehawaii.gov |
| Idaho | idaho.gov |
| Illinois | illinois.gov |
| Indiana | in.gov and indiana.gov |
| Iowa | iowa.gov |
| Kansas | kansas.gov |
| Kentucky | ky.gov and kentucky.gov |
| Louisiana | la.gov and louisiana.gov |
| Maine | maine.gov |
| Maryland | md.gov and maryland.gov |
| Massachusetts | ma.gov, mass.gov and massachusetts.gov |
| Michigan | mi.gov and michigan.gov |
| Minnesota | mn.gov and minnesota.gov |
| Mississippi | ms.gov and mississippi.gov |
| Missouri | mo.gov and missouri.gov |
| Montana | mt.gov and montana.gov |
| Nebraska | ne.gov and nebraska.gov |
| Nevada | nv.gov and nevada.gov |
| New Hampshire | nh.gov |
| New Jersey | nj.gov and newjersey.gov |
| New Mexico | nm.gov and newmexico.gov |
| New York | ny.gov |
| North Carolina | nc.gov and northcarolina.gov |
| North Dakota | nd.gov and northdakota.gov |
| Ohio | ohio.gov |
| Oklahoma | ok.gov and oklahoma.gov |
| Oregon | oregon.gov |
| Pennsylvania | pa.gov |
| Puerto Rico | pr.gov |
| Rhode Island | ri.gov |
| South Carolina | sc.gov |
| South Dakota | sd.gov |
| Tennessee | tn.gov and tennessee.gov |
| Texas | texas.gov |
| Utah | utah.gov |
| Vermont | vt.gov and vermont.gov |
| Virgin Islands | vi.gov |
| Virginia | virginia.gov |
| Washington | wa.gov |
| West Virginia | wv.gov and westvirginia.gov |
| Wisconsin | wi.gov and wisconsin.gov |
| Wyoming | wy.gov, wyo.gov and wyoming.gov |
International equivalents
While the use of gov as a top-level domain is restricted to the United States, several other countries have second-level domains of the same name or similar semantics for governmental purposes, including the following. Note that the governments of some jurisdictions use alternate domains in public communications (for example, the Government of Canada adopted canada.ca as its main public-facing URL in the 2010s, and some Canadian provinces have made similar changes).
| Country or Territory | Domain | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Afghanistan | gov.af | |
| Albania | gov.al | |
| Algeria | gov.dz | |
| Andorra | gov.ad | |
| Angola | gov.ao | |
| Armenia | gov.am | |
| Aruba | gov.aw | Part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands |
| Argentina | gob.ar | |
| Austria | gv.at | |
| Australia | gov.au | |
| Åland | gov.ax | Part of Finland |
| Azerbaijan | gov.az | |
| Bahamas | gov.bs | |
| Bangladesh | gov.bd | |
| Barbados | gov.bb | |
| Belarus | gov.by | |
| Belgium | gov.be | gov.be is for national matters, the Belgian Federal Government is using fgov.be and belgium.be |
| Bulgaria | gov.bg | Only the Council of Ministers uses this site. |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina | gov.ba | |
| Brazil | gov.br | |
| Chile | gob.cl or gov.cl | |
| Canada | gc.ca | |
| Template:SpaceNew Brunswick | gnb.ca | Part of Canada. The previous gov.nb.ca remains active but deprecated due to the province's official bilingualism. |
| Template:SpaceQuebec | gouv.qc.ca | Part of Canada |
| Template:SpaceOther provinces and territories | gov.{xx}.ca | Parts of Canada. '{xx}' is the applicable province or territory's postal abbreviation. |
| China | gov.cn | |
| Template:SpaceHong Kong | gov.hk | Part of China |
| Template:SpaceMacau | gov.mo | Part of China |
| Colombia | gov.co | |
| Croatia | gov.hr | |
| Cyprus | gov.cy | |
| Czechia | gov.cz | |
| Egypt | gov.eg | |
| El Salvador | gob.sv | |
| Greece | gov.gr | |
| Finland | gov.fi | |
| France | gouv.fr | Stands for the French word gouvernement |
| Hungary | gov.hu | |
| India | gov.in | |
| Indonesia | go.id | |
| Iran | gov.ir | |
| Iraq | gov.iq | |
| Template:SpaceKurdistan Regional Government | gov.krd | Part of Iraq |
| Ireland | gov.ie | |
| Israel | gov.il | |
| Italy | gov.it | |
| Japan | go.jp | |
| Kazakhstan | gov.kz | |
| Kenya | go.ke | |
| Latvia | gov.lv | |
| Lebanon | gov.lb | |
| Lithuania | gov.lt | |
| Malaysia | gov.my | |
| Malta | gov.mt | |
| Mexico | gob.mx | |
| Moldova | gov.md | |
| Morocco | gov.ma | |
| Myanmar (Burma) | gov.mm | |
| Nepal | gov.np | |
| New Caledonia | gouv.nc | Part of French overseas |
| New Zealand | govt.nz | |
| Nigeria | gov.ng | |
| North Korea | gov.kp | |
| Palestine | gov.ps | |
| Paraguay | gov.py | |
| Peru | gob.pe | |
| Pakistan | gov.pk | |
| Philippines | gov.ph | |
| Poland | gov.pl | |
| Portugal | gov.pt | |
| Romania | gov.ro | |
| Russia | gov.ru | |
| Senegal | gouv.sn | Stands for the French word gouvernement |
| Singapore | gov.sg | |
| Slovakia | gov.sk | |
| Slovenia | gov.si | |
| South Africa | gov.za | |
| South Korea | go.kr | |
| Spain | gob.es | |
| Sri Lanka | gov.lk | |
| Sweden | gov.se | |
| Switzerland | admin.ch | |
| Taiwan (Republic of China) | gov.tw | |
| Thailand | go.th | |
| Tonga | gov.to | |
| Trinidad and Tobago | gov.tt | |
| Turkey | gov.tr | |
| Ukraine | gov.ua | |
| United Kingdom | gov.uk | |
| Template:SpaceScotland | gov.scot | Part of the United Kingdom |
| Template:SpaceWales | gov.wales | |
| Template:SpaceGuernsey | gov.gg | Crown dependency |
| Template:SpaceJersey | gov.je | |
| Template:SpaceIsle of Man | gov.im | |
| Template:SpaceAnguilla | gov.ai | British overseas territory |
| Template:SpaceBermuda | gov.bm | |
| Template:SpaceBritish Virgin Islands | gov.vg | |
| Template:SpaceCayman Islands | gov.ky | |
| Template:SpaceFalkland Islands | gov.fk | |
| Template:SpacePitcairn Islands | government.pn | |
| Template:SpaceTurks & Caicos Islands | gov.tc | |
| Uruguay | gub.uy | |
| Venezuela | gob.ve | |
| Vietnam | gov.vn |
See also
References
External links
- Official gov registration site
- IANA gov whois information
- Template:IETF RFC Domain Requirements (defined the original top-level domains)
- Template:IETF RFC U.S. Government Internet Domain Names
- Complete list of gov domains