ISO 3166-1 and ccTLDsThe codes EH and KP, although theoretically available as ccTLDs for Western Sahara and North Korea, have never been assigned and do not exist in DNS. Similarly, the code CS (Serbia and Montenegro) is not assigned an operator (cs was previously assigned to Czechoslovakia). TL (post-independence East Timor), is now being introduced to replace TP.
All other current ISO 3166-1 codes have been assigned and do exist in DNS. However, some of these are effectively unused. In particular, the ccTLDs for the Norwegian dependency Bouvet Island (bv) and the designation Svalbard and Jan Mayen (sj) do exist in DNS, but no subdomains have been assigned, and it is Norid policy not to assign any at present. Only one subdomain is still registered in gb (ISO 3166-1 for United Kingdom) and no new registrations are being accepted for it. Sites in the UK generally use uk (see below).
Six ccTLDs are currently in use despite not being ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes. Some of these codes were in older ISO 3166-1 two-letter codes (now listed in ISO 3166-3).
There are two ccTLDs which have been deleted after the corresponding 2-letter code was withdrawn from ISO 3166-1, namely cs (for Czechoslovakia) and zr (for Zaire). There had also been a ccTLD for the GDR, dd, which was never used at all. There may be a significant delay between withdrawal from ISO 3166-1 and deletion from the DNS; for example, ZR ceased to be an ISO 3166-1 code in 1997, but the zr ccTLD was not deleted until 2001. Other ccTLDs corresponding to obsolete ISO 3166-1 have not yet been deleted; in some cases they may never be deleted due to the amount of disruption this would cause for a heavily used ccTLD. In particular, the Soviet Union's ccTLD su remains in use more than a decade after SU was removed from ISO 3166-1.
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