TIL - the .ch country code is for Switzerland.
TIL - the .ch country code is for Switzerland.
Outside perceptions of Switzerland are replete with clichés and stereotypes, from alphorns to Heidi. Here’s what you might not know.
"The Helvetii, a Celtic tribe who battled Julius Caesar, gave their name to the Swiss territory. The Latin name for the country, Helvetia, still appears on Swiss stamps. The letters CH appearing on Swiss cars and in internet addresses stand for the Latin words Confoederatio Helvetica, meaning Swiss Confederation."
I would have guessed it stood for chocolate
That's how I remember it. Swiss chocolate.
Or cheese.
Usually when you include the dot it's called TLD or ccTLD (Top Level Domain or Country Code Top Level Domain). Country codes as in ISO 3166 are without the dot, and written with capital letters, and they predate the internet, first published in 1974. The tlds were based on these codes.
There are some minor differences, e.g United States Minor Outlying Islands (UM) and Western Sahara (EH) have a country code, but no tlds were implemented.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top-level_domain
Edit: In the article it's correctly written as
CHSometimes I wonder if Fitbit could have its Swiss website with the domain being fitbit.ch
Helvetica the font is the centerpost of swiss communication and recent graphic design history/culture.
For those wondering, the tld for China is .cn
I knew it was for Switzerland since I see it on their numberplates, but I honestly never questioned what it even stood for. So thanks for that :)
I feel so, so stupid right now.
Hey, I've been doing this 30 years and just learned it today, you have NOTHING to feel bad about. :)
It's not that .ch is a Swiss domain in particular, and more that I've seen websites with that suffix for years and just automatically assumed that they were Chinese, when in retrospect it didn't even make sense. Like, wow, all these Chinese websites are surprisingly anglo-friendly and the translations aren't messing with the layout at all.
Ironic that the Helvetii fought the Romans only for their descendants to use a Latin abbreviation as their country code :D