Around the world in five domains

GeoTLDs promote local identities on the internet thanks to geographical domains. This makes them the perfect way of getting to know cities all around the world without leaving your home. We’re proposing a trip around the world by visiting five city domains. Are you coming along?

Our journey begins with .barcelona, a domain which has been operating for six years now and has more than five thousand registered addresses. Browsing the various types of .barcelona domains offers us a first-hand look at some of the city’s most typical and iconic sectors. For instance, through cultural domains such as the one used by Park Güell; gastronomy, such as the domain used by La Boqueria, or meet.barcelona, as a way of getting to know the city and what’s going on there. In just a few clicks you can tap into the city’s heartbeat. But we already knew about this domain, so let’s pack our bags and move on!

Our next stop is .stockholm, one of the most singular city domains in that it is limited only to websites relating to the City Council in this city. A good example is start.stockholm, where we can find general information about the city and a clutch of .stockholm websites for the various services which the City Council offers its citizens.

Changing continent, we visit the geographica domain with the most registered websites in the world, at over 302,000! This is .tokyo, the domain for the Japanese capital. Here we can find the website marathon.tokyo, for international runners, along with visit-chiyoda.tokyo and visit-minato-city.tokyo to discover neighbourhoods in Tokyo, or japanfreak.tokyo, for those interested in curious aspects of Japanese culture.

From here we hop over to one of Australia’s cities with its own domain, which is .sydney (the other is .melbourne if you’re wondering). This city domain has over seven thousand registered sites, including cycleways.sydney, a website with maps and routes for getting around the city by bike.

Our journey continues with one of the most visited cities in the world, as we stop off at .nyc. The city that never sleeps has over 68,000 registered domains. We can find sites such as greenwichvillage.nyc, with everything that’s going on in the neighbourhood, and newyearseve.nyc, for those wishing to recreate the legendary New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square, so often seen in films.

Finally, the last stage of our journey takes us to .capetown. The domain for the South African capital has over four thousand registered domains. These include wanderer.capetown, to discover various routes around the city, iseeyou.capetown, a project seeking to give visibility to different collectives and fight to eradicate the discrimination and inequalities that still exist in a city as complex as Cape Town.