Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) refers to the ability to use characters from any language (e.g., á, ç, è, ñ, ö) in domain names. The Domain Name System, which links text-based Web site names to numeric IP addresses and allows computers to locate Web sites, originally was limited largely to the characters used in English and the ASCII character set. Now, technical standards have been adopted to enable the registration of IDNs or domain names that are represented by native language, non-ASCII characters using Punycode. Punycode is a simple and efficient way of translating non-ASCII characters into a string of characters allowed in host name labels (ASCII letters, digits and hyphens) and back again.

German script IDNs became available for .ORG registration in January 2005. Internet users are able to register domain names containing the characters ä, ö and ü. An example is müller.org. On 23 July 2005, .ORG IDN registrations became available in Danish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Korean (Hangul), Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish, and on 03 March 2007, .ORG IDN registrations will become available in the Spanish language script.

Check our list of .ORG registrars to find out which ones offer IDN registration.

IDN Language Scripts Available for Registration:

IDN Language Script/Policy	IDN Language Tag	Effective Date
Danish  German  Hungarian  Icelandic  Korean  Latvian  Lithuanian  Polish  Spanish  Swedish	DA DE HU IS KO LV LT PL ES SV	23-Jul-2005 15-Jan-2005 23-Jul-2005 23-Jul-2005 23-Jul-2005 23-Jul-2005 23-Jul-2005 23-Jul-2005 3-Mar-2007 23-Jul-2005

To learn more about IDNs, go to "Strengthening the Internet.“ Additional resources about IDNs include:

• .ORG Extended Characters
• Punycode Converter
• FAQs for .ORG IDNs
• IDN Standards and Guidelines
  • RFC 3490
  • RFC 3491
  • RFC 3492
  • RFC 3454
  • ICANN IDN Implementation Guidelines
  • IANA IDN Language Table Registry

For registrars, additional IDN resources are available in our "Registrar Resources“ section.