What happens to domains when a country changes names? (1.Viewing)

Not a good time to own .in (India) extensions​

So it looks like India might change their name to 'Bharat'

That means the .in extension will probably become obsolete.

The million dollar question here is.... will there be a free for all or will the new extension (lets say .bh or something) roll over any preexisting .in extensions to the new one.

Is there any precedence there? Has it happened before?

The .in extension has seen it's fair share of troubles lately, as you can read here:
India might ban .in domain investing

MapleDots said:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1700891280711246286

Not a good time to own .in (India) extensions​

So it looks like India might change their name to 'Bharat'

That means the .in extension will probably become obsolete.

The million dollar question here is.... will there be a free for all or will the new extension (lets say .bh or something) roll over any preexisting .in extensions to the new one.

Is there any precedence there? Has it happened before?

The .in extension has seen it's fair share of troubles lately, as you can read here:
India might ban .in domain investing

Click to expand...

There are have been multiple country name changes, but really none on that level.

Sometimes there are situations like with Sudan. South Sudan split off from Sudan.
Sudan retained .SD, while South Sudan was delegated .SS.

Burma changed it's name to Myanmar years ago, but the .BU was never delegated. They use .MM.

There are more recent changes like -

Swaziland; Kingdom of Swaziland changed to Eswatini; Kingdom of Eswatini.

They still use .SZ. No other extension has been delegated.

I can't see .IN being replaced. It is too widely known and used.

I also don't expect people to stop calling it India anytime soon.

Brad

MapleDots said:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1702001027749237038

Click to expand...

My guess is even if India actually changes the name, people will keep calling it "India" for a very long time, and nothing will happen with the .IN extension. There is no suitable substitute.

Brad

Combine Bharat and India to .bi

Best of both worlds but i think that one is taken too.

MapleDots said:

Combine Bharat and India to .bi

Best of both worlds but i think that one is taken too.

Click to expand...

Trying to change their ccTLD would create such a clusterfuck.

It can just be like Switzerland where the vast majority of the world calls it that, but their ccTLD is .ch.

Brad

There's also .SU still waiting to sunset.