The .su country code domain stands for Soviet Union. It was established in 1990, just before the Soviet Union ceased to exist. And although the Soviet Union is but a memory, .su is alive and well, despite the best efforts of ICANN.

According to this Reuters article, roughly 10,000 .su domains have been registered, including 1,500 this year. While this number pales in comparison to the Russian domain, .ru, it has to drive the folks at ICANN a bit crazy. ICANN has been trying to fade .su away to nothingness for some time now but the registrars keep signing up new registrations.

Says the article:

“We want to try and save it,” Alexei Platonov, director of the independent Russian Institute of Public Networks, which promotes technology use, said at a news briefing. “First there is the community and secondly there is also the history of the domain name … It’s original and offers Web site names that other domains don’t have any more,” Platonov said.

Despite the love a number of Russians feel for their .su domain, I don’t believe companies who plan to enter Russia need register it. The .ru domain will suffice, and it is one of the fastest-growing country codes on the Internet right now (next to China). In fact, it just recently surpassed one million registrations.

I will be soon publishing a new poster that includes all 245 country code domains — though it will not include the .su domain. You can read more about it here.

You can also read about the smaller version of this map, which we published earlier this year.

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