asia-domain Domain

The domain extension .asia is the sponsored top-level domain of the DotAsia Organization. Behind it is the consortium Afilias. The domain extension was introduced by ICANN on 2 May 2007.

Award guidelines

Domains with this extension can primarily be applied for by natural persons and companies from the Asia-Pacific region. Since 26 March 2008, however, registration of such a domain has been possible for natural persons and companies based anywhere in the world. Because of the previous strict allocation criteria and also because of .asia was initially registered as a domain extension by companies and by public figures who wanted to use it to secure brand protection for their products or services.

Users and importance

Quite a lot of companies and individuals could use this domain extension. More than half of the world's population lives on the Asian continent, which covers an area of 44,614,500 km². Asia is therefore the largest continent on earth. Geographically, Asia includes the north of the Arctic Ocean and reaches to the east of the Pacific Ocean and is limited in the south by the Indian Ocean. Compared to Europe, Asia has no clear border in the west and also no geological border. Asia is defined in the rain to Europe from north to south by the Ural Mountains or the Ural River and the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus and the Manytschniederung. The southern coast of the Black Sea and the Bosporus, i.e. the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles, also serve as borders. Asia is divided into North Asia, Central Asia, Near East (also called West Asia), South Asia and East Asia as well as Southeast Asia.

Among the more than 4 billion people, the importance of the domain extension .asia is nevertheless very low. In contrast to other country-specific domain extensions, .asia has not yet been able to establish itself. At the end of 2011, just under 200,000 domains were registered under this extension. By the end of 2013, however, there were already more than 300,000 domains. After a brief increase in registrations, however, the number of domains with this extension has been stagnating at around 300,000 for some time.