Countries are designated in the Domain Name System by their two-letter ISO country code;[4] there are exceptions, however (e.g., .uk). This group of domains is therefore commonly known as country-code top-level domains (ccTLD). Since 2009, countries with non-Latin based alphabets or scripting systems may apply for internationalized country code top-level domain names, which are displayed in end-user applications in their language-native script or alphabet, but use a Punycode-translated ASCII domain name in the Domain Name System.

The Categories group has become known as the generic top-level domains. Initially this group consisted of GOV, EDU, COM, MIL, ORG, and NET.

In the growth of the Internet, it became desirable to create additional generic top-level domains. Some of the initial domains' purposes were also generalized, modified, or assigned for maintenance to special organizations affiliated with the intended purpose.

As a result, IANA today distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains