fo-domain Domain

The domain extension .fo is the country-specific top-level domain of the Faroe Islands. It is an archipelago consisting of 18 islands, which have an autonomous administration, but belong politically to Denmark. The islands are located in the North Atlantic Ocean, between Scotland, Norway and Iceland. Of the 18 islands discovered in the Middle Ages, 17 islands are permanently inhabited.

The .fo domain ending was entered into the so-called root zone of the Domain Name System on 15 March 1993 and launched at IANA in September 1997. The domain extension was initially administered by UN12 in Denmark. In December 2003 UN12 applied for transfer to the FO Council, which was granted in September 2004.

Award guidelines

The domain extension .fo can be applied for by residents and entrepreneurs on the Faroe Islands, as well as all other private persons and companies all over the world. The approximately 50,000 inhabitants of the islands are spread over more than approximately 17,000 private households. There is a fairly large minority of Danes and a smaller minority of Greenlanders living on the islands. In addition, Icelanders, Norwegians and Thais as well as Philippinos and Britons also live on the islands. From this fact to infer the language used on the private websites registered under .fo is not possible. This is because Denmark is also home to numerous Faroese native speakers, some of whom were born in Denmark. Faroe Islands with Danish ancestors have also spoken Danish at home for many generations. Websites with this domain extension of companies are usually even multilingual. Websites of tourism companies even offer their content in English. Besides tourism, the shipyards located on the islands are also among the companies that draw attention to themselves and their products via the WWW with a .fo domain. However, most of the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands live from fish farming and fishing. The most important trading countries are Great Britain, Germany and Denmark as well as France.

Meaning

The domain extension .fo is quite important for the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands. After all, the fact that an island state with just 50,000 inhabitants was given its own domain extension was something special in the early 1990s.