Chinese government buys 20,000 new IDN domain names

TLD Registry inks deal with Chinese government for over 10,000 domains in each of its new TLDs.

TLD Registry Ltd, which is launching the new top level domain names Dot Chinese Online (.在线) and Dot Chinese Website (.中文网), has inked a deal with the Chinese central government’s own registrar for 10,226 domain names in each of the new internationalized TLDs.

The domains include the names of every city in China with populations of over 200,000 people, all 3,000 counties, all provinces, all municipalities, all Special Administrative Regions, and a number of key locations such as mountains.

Usage by these entities could be a big viral marketing benefit to the registry.

TLD Registry notes that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has made it a requirement that all Chinese government websites to transition to fully-Chinese domain names.

The landrush for these two domain names starts on Thursday, and TLD Registry is holding a launch party with a live and online auction this Thursday and Friday in Macau.