City TLDs are municipal assets: .berlin, .paris, .nyc and .london ranked
A city ending is sold as a civic asset. .berlin, .paris, .nyc and .london are geographic names, and under ICANN’s rules a new TLD (Top-Level Domain) that uses a city’s name for purposes tied to the city needs the support or non-objection of that city’s government. Some cities run their own. The September 2026 census grades 26 such endings, named for a city, a region, a nation or a cultural community, beside the country code each one sits inside.
On the F rate, the country code comes out ahead in all 26 pairs. On DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) enforcement and DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions), two controls a domain owner sets at the registrar or DNS (Domain Name System) host, some endings pull ahead: six on enforcement and eight on DNSSEC.
Each comparison sets two very different populations side by side. The civic endings hold between 5,075 and 103,765 graded names each, and their country codes between 530,094 and 11,619,348. The census records how the names in each are configured and nothing about why, so a gap describes the names under an ending and says nothing about the registry that runs it.
The 26 endings ranked
The first table ranks the endings by F rate: the share of each ending’s names carrying an F, over the names carrying a grade plus the dead ones. The host column gives the same share for the country code, and the gap is the difference in points. Every gap is positive.
Figure 1. The F rate of each civic ending (bar) and of its host country code (tick), over names carrying a grade plus dead names.
| # | ending | F rate | host | host F rate | points above host | names graded | place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | .bzh | 53.2% | .fr | 48.3% | +4.9 | 13,285 | Brittany |
| 2 | .frl | 55.3% | .nl | 39.8% | +15.5 | 9,190 | Friesland |
| 3 | .swiss | 60.5% | .ch | 38.7% | +21.8 | 21,121 | Switzerland |
| 4 | .eus | 62.6% | .es | 56.4% | +6.2 | 14,389 | Basque Country |
| 5 | .amsterdam | 63.6% | .nl | 39.8% | +23.8 | 16,065 | Amsterdam |
| 6 | .gal | 64.8% | .es | 56.4% | +8.4 | 5,564 | Galicia |
| 7 | .tirol | 65.2% | .at | 51.8% | +13.4 | 7,537 | Tyrol |
| 8 | .cat | 66.2% | .es | 56.4% | +9.8 | 103,765 | Catalonia (Catalan) |
| 9 | .scot | 67.5% | .uk | 65.9% | +1.6 | 12,278 | Scotland |
| 10 | .brussels | 70.0% | .be | 51.0% | +19.0 | 6,423 | Brussels |
| 11 | .paris | 73.3% | .fr | 48.3% | +25.0 | 18,154 | Paris |
| 12 | .wien | 74.5% | .at | 51.8% | +22.7 | 13,026 | Vienna |
| 13 | .berlin | 74.9% | .de | 65.1% | +9.8 | 28,489 | Berlin |
| 14 | .wales | 74.9% | .uk | 65.9% | +9.0 | 12,003 | Wales |
| 15 | .quebec | 75.6% | .ca | 70.9% | +4.7 | 5,075 | Quebec |
| 16 | .cymru | 76.0% | .uk | 65.9% | +10.1 | 8,010 | Wales (Welsh) |
| 17 | .hamburg | 77.0% | .de | 65.1% | +11.9 | 14,564 | Hamburg |
| 18 | .tokyo | 77.9% | .jp | 61.4% | +16.5 | 73,348 | Tokyo |
| 19 | .nrw | 79.2% | .de | 65.1% | +14.1 | 16,719 | North Rhine-Westphalia |
| 20 | .london | 80.6% | .uk | 65.9% | +14.7 | 33,289 | London |
| 21 | .ist | 80.9% | .tr | 50.8% | +30.1 | 6,157 | Istanbul |
| 22 | .nyc | 82.8% | .us | 81.0% | +1.8 | 54,916 | New York City |
| 23 | .bayern | 84.5% | .de | 65.1% | +19.4 | 22,241 | Bavaria |
| 24 | .koeln | 85.1% | .de | 65.1% | +20.0 | 16,273 | Cologne |
| 25 | .vegas | 87.1% | .us | 81.0% | +6.1 | 10,636 | Las Vegas |
| 26 | .miami | 89.8% | .us | 81.0% | +8.8 | 11,186 | Miami |
The spread is wide. .bzh, the Breton ending, has the lowest F rate of the 26, 53.2%, and sits 4.9 points above .fr. .miami has the highest, 89.8%, 8.8 points above .us, which at 81.0% is the weakest host in the table. The three US city endings, .nyc, .vegas and .miami, hold three of the bottom five places. All five German endings sit above .de’s 65.1%, from .berlin at 74.9% to .koeln at 85.1%.
Taken together, the 26 endings hold 553,703 graded names, and 73.7% of them score F. Across the 497 endings the census publishes one by one, generic TLDs score 77.9% F as a group and country codes 64.5%, so the civic endings sit between the two. ICANN classes all 26 as generic TLDs.
Nearest to home and furthest from it
The four smallest gaps belong to .scot (1.6 points above .uk), .nyc (1.8 above .us), .quebec (4.7 above .ca) and .bzh (4.9 above .fr). The .nyc gap is small against the weakest of the twelve hosts, .us at 81.0% F. The .bzh gap is small against one of the strongest, .fr at 48.3%.
The five largest gaps are .ist at 30.1 points above .tr, .paris at 25.0 above .fr, .amsterdam at 23.8 above .nl, .wien at 22.7 above .at and .swiss at 21.8 above .ch. Four of those five are run by the public body itself.
The six endings run directly by a city, a national government or its agency (.amsterdam, .ist, .london, .nyc, .paris and .swiss) range from 60.5% to 82.8% F, with a median gap to their host of 22.8 points. The fifteen run by a private or non-profit registry with the government’s support have a median gap of 13.4. The five cultural endings (.bzh, .cat, .eus, .gal and .scot) have the smallest, 6.2 points. Groups of six, fifteen and five are too small to say whether who runs an ending has anything to do with its gap, and the census records nothing that would link the two.
Mail: where six endings beat their host
The second table keeps the order of the first and shows three controls, each as a share of the names carrying a grade plus the dead ones: a DMARC record with any policy, a record that enforces with a quarantine or reject policy, and DNSSEC.
| ending | DMARC record | host | enforcing | host | DNSSEC | host |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| .bzh | 30.2% | 39.7% | 11.5% | 13.0% | 30.2% | 22.1% |
| .frl | 46.4% | 57.9% | 27.9% | 30.2% | 35.1% | 55.9% |
| .swiss | 28.5% | 44.5% | 22.3% | 32.1% | 21.0% | 51.4% |
| .eus | 29.6% | 43.9% | 12.5% | 14.2% | 10.0% | 3.4% |
| .amsterdam | 37.2% | 57.9% | 24.9% | 30.2% | 15.4% | 55.9% |
| .gal | 28.3% | 43.9% | 11.4% | 14.2% | 3.8% | 3.4% |
| .tirol | 28.8% | 38.4% | 7.1% | 11.1% | 2.8% | 4.3% |
| .cat | 32.1% | 43.9% | 15.1% | 14.2% | 12.2% | 3.4% |
| .scot | 45.2% | 33.2% | 12.3% | 14.5% | 1.5% | 3.4% |
| .brussels | 22.6% | 37.0% | 11.3% | 15.0% | 33.3% | 33.1% |
| .paris | 22.9% | 39.7% | 9.0% | 13.0% | 20.7% | 22.1% |
| .wien | 24.8% | 38.4% | 6.6% | 11.1% | 2.9% | 4.3% |
| .berlin | 54.9% | 44.3% | 27.9% | 21.7% | 1.4% | 2.8% |
| .wales | 34.9% | 33.2% | 12.2% | 14.5% | 2.5% | 3.4% |
| .quebec | 24.2% | 27.8% | 11.2% | 13.8% | 3.2% | 2.6% |
| .cymru | 30.5% | 33.2% | 14.1% | 14.5% | 2.3% | 3.4% |
| .hamburg | 49.5% | 44.3% | 24.9% | 21.7% | 1.9% | 2.8% |
| .tokyo | 31.2% | 33.4% | 7.6% | 5.6% | 0.2% | 0.6% |
| .nrw | 50.4% | 44.3% | 19.9% | 21.7% | 14.1% | 2.8% |
| .london | 28.0% | 33.2% | 13.9% | 14.5% | 3.2% | 3.4% |
| .ist | 26.8% | 38.8% | 17.6% | 16.2% | 2.0% | 0.2% |
| .nyc | 18.4% | 20.8% | 10.8% | 12.1% | 2.0% | 2.8% |
| .bayern | 38.4% | 44.3% | 17.7% | 21.7% | 1.8% | 2.8% |
| .koeln | 43.0% | 44.3% | 17.7% | 21.7% | 1.8% | 2.8% |
| .vegas | 21.8% | 20.8% | 17.3% | 12.1% | 1.3% | 2.8% |
| .miami | 16.5% | 20.8% | 11.9% | 12.1% | 2.3% | 2.8% |
Six of the 26 publish a DMARC record on more names than their host (.berlin, .hamburg, .nrw, .scot, .vegas and .wales), and six enforce it on more names (.berlin, .cat, .hamburg, .ist, .tokyo and .vegas).
Three of the five German endings publish a record on more names than .de: .berlin on 54.9% against .de’s 44.3%, .nrw on 50.4% and .hamburg on 49.5%. .berlin and .hamburg also enforce above the German rate, at 27.9% and 24.9% against 21.7%, and .berlin’s lead of 6.2 points is the widest in the table. .nrw, .bayern and .koeln enforce below it, at 19.9%, 17.7% and 17.7%.
.vegas has the next widest lead, enforcing on 17.3% of names against 12.1% for .us, 5.2 points ahead. .tokyo enforces on 7.6% against .jp’s 5.6%, the weakest host on enforcement. .ist and .cat lead by under two points: 17.6% against .tr’s 16.2%, and 15.1% against .es’s 14.2%. The widest gaps the other way are .swiss, at 22.3% against 32.1% for .ch, the strongest host on enforcement, then .amsterdam at 24.9% against .nl’s 30.2% and .wien at 6.6% against .at’s 11.1%.
The share of names whose DMARC record names an aggregate-report address runs from 2.5% in .koeln to 24.3% in .frl, so in every ending most names publish no report address. What an enforcing record looks like, and what the report address is for, are the same under a civic ending as under any other.
DNSSEC: eight endings beat their host
Eight of the 26 have DNSSEC on more of their names than their host: .brussels, .bzh, .cat, .eus, .gal, .ist, .nrw and .quebec. Four of them lead by more than six points: .nrw with 14.1% of names signed against .de’s 2.8%, the highest share of any German ending; .cat with 12.2% against .es’s 3.4%; .bzh with 30.2% against .fr’s 22.1%; and .eus with 10.0%, also against .es. The other four lead by under two points.
Three hosts sign more than 30% of their names: .nl (55.9%), .ch (51.4%) and .be (33.1%). Under them, .amsterdam signs 15.4%, .frl 35.1% and .swiss 21.0%, while .brussels, at 33.3%, sits 0.2 points above .be and so counts among the eight.
The census records these shares and not which registrar or DNS host produced them. What signing changes and what it breaks applies under a civic ending as under the country code.
Dead names
A dead name is one where the scan got a definitive empty answer for the domain’s name servers and no address or mail record resolved, as the ghost towns piece sets out, and the census grades it F. Across the 26 endings, 1,267 of 553,703 names are dead, 0.23%, and they make up 0.3% of the Fs.
Only .swiss (1.36%) and .ist (1.07%) reach 1%, and six endings have a lower dead share than their host: .bayern, .berlin, .bzh, .nrw, .tirol and .wien. The F rates above are almost entirely live names that publish too little.
How the rates were computed
All figures come from the September 2026 census, as of 5 September 2026. For the 26 civic endings they’re counted from the census’s per-domain records, one row per domain, and they match the per-TLD figures the census publishes. The country-code figures are those published rows.
Every share uses one denominator, the names carrying a grade plus the dead ones, which the counting page sets out for grade shares. The DMARC and DNSSEC columns use the same base, so a dead name counts as having no record.
The F rate is the share of those names graded F, and dead is the names the census marks dead. A DMARC record counts whatever its policy, including none and malformed records; enforcing means a quarantine or reject policy. DNSSEC means the zone publishes both a DNSKEY (DNS Public Key) record and a DS (Delegation Signer) record at its parent; the census checks that both are present and doesn’t validate the signatures. Gaps compare the two shares as printed, to one decimal place.
The 26 were chosen by hand from the endings the census publishes one by one, and the first table is the full list. An ending qualifies if it’s named for a city, a region, a nation or a cultural community and exists with the support of that place’s government or community body. .kiwi, .lat, .africa and .asia are in the census and left out, because no municipal or regional body stands behind them. The census file carries .scot with a country label, so the grouping here comes from the hand list and from nothing in the file.
Another 30 civic endings are in the scan with fewer than 5,000 graded names, the floor the census applies before it publishes a TLD on its own. .istanbul, .ruhr, .saarland, .vlaanderen, .madrid, .barcelona, .boston, .kyoto, .osaka, .sydney and .melbourne are among them. They aren’t ranked here because their figures aren’t on the data page for you to check.
Nothing here is compared with an earlier edition, and the what we compare page says why.
Check a name under one of these endings
If you own a name under one of these endings, the free scan reads it live and shows which of the checks behind the F rate it fails. DMARC enforcement and DNSSEC are both set at the registrar or DNS host. The report for one name uses the same measurement as the tables.
Figures as of 5 September 2026, from the September 2026 edition of the defaults.exposed census. Census numbers move every month; the current values are on the census data page.