la-domain Domain

The domain extension .la is the country-specific top-level domain from the People's Democratic Republic of Laos, which has borders with China, Vietnam and Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia. Even though there was never an official declaration of war by the United States to the then neutral Laos, US bombers bombed large parts of Laos, especially in the 1970s. The economic wounds from these acts of war, which affected almost the whole of South-East Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, have not been overcome by Laos for a long time. Even today, the country's economy is still at a very low level and the development of the infrastructure is also at a very low level. Many of Laos' approximately 7 million inhabitants therefore do not have direct access to the WWW.

Allocation guidelines of the domain extension

The .la domain extension was launched on 14 May 1996 and is administered by the Lao National Internet Committee, a department within the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications. At one time the administration of .la domains was in the hands of the London-based company CentralNIC. For a while after that, the domain extension was not available to the Ministry in Laos, but was used for top-level domains for domains related to Los Angeles. Since 2011 the domain extension .la is again available for Laos itself. However, the domains will only be registered at the second level. A domain under this domain extension may be registered by any private person and any company, even if there is no residence or company headquarters or branch office in Laos.

Use and meaning

Due to the allocation guidelines it is possible that everyone who is interested in registering a domain with reference to Los Angeles can also use this domain extension. Especially here the interest is unbrokenly high, because until 2011 the domain ending .la was marketed for domains with a relation to Los Angeles and only returned there after the protest of the government in Laos. Nevertheless, the domain ending .la has hardly any international significance.