country code

A two-character component of an e-mail or Web address that identifies a country, also known as a "domain extension." Computers read addresses from right to left. Thus, on encountering sven@univ.oslo.net.se, the message would first be sent to Sweden, since se is the country code for Sweden. Swedish routers would then send the message to univ.oslo.net where it will be waiting for Sven the next time he signs on.

Country Codes in Search Engines
Google and Yahoo! have language selection boxes for narrowing searches within particular countries; however, other search engines let you specify the country code in the search text. For example, in AltaVista, to find Web sites originating in France and devoted to French wines, you might try +wine +domain:fr. To do the same thing in Go, try +wine +site:fr. See country codes A-E, country codes F-M and country codes N-Z. For a unique way to profit from a country code, see .tv.

---

(networking, standard)

country code - Originally, a two-letter abbreviation for a particular country (or geographical region), generally used as a top-level domain. Originally country codes were just for countries; but country codes have been allocated for many areas (mostly islands) that aren't countries, such as Antarctica (aq), Christmas Island (cx) and Saint Pierre et Miquelon (pm). Country codes are defined in ISO 3166 and are used as the top level domain for Internet hostnames in most countries but hardly ever in the USA (code "us"). ISO 3166 defines short and full english and french names, two- and three-letter codes and a three-digit code for each country. There are also language codes. Latest list.