.ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. Registrants of .ca domains must meet Canadian Presence Requirements as defined by the registry. Examples of valid entities include:

• a Canadian citizen,
• a permanent resident of Canada,
• a legally recognized Canadian organization,
• an Inuit, First Nation, Metis or other people indigenous to Canada,
• an Indian Band as defined in the Indian Act of Canada,
• a foreign resident of Canada that holds a registered Canadian trademark, or
• Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth the Second.

Registrants can either register domains at the second level (e.g. example.ca) or at the third level in one of the geographic second-level domains defined by the registry (e.g. example.ab.ca).

The domain name was originally allocated by Jon Postel, operator of IANA to John Demco of the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 1988.

In 1997, at the Canadian annual Internet conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the Canadian Internet community, with a view to liberalize registration procedures and substantially improve turnaround times, decided to undertake reform of the .ca Registry.

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) is a not for profit Canadian corporation that is responsible for operating the .ca Internet country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) today. It assumed operation of the .ca ccTLD on December 1st, 2000 from UBC.

Second-level domains

The following second-level domains are a historical artifact from the time before CIRA managed the .ca domain. Federally incorporated companies could have a .ca domain, while provinically incorporated compaines required the letters of their province, like .mb.ca. Currently, any of the above listed parties can register a domain with a name of their choosing followed directly by .ca

• .ab.ca — Alberta
• .bc.ca — British Columbia
• .gc.ca — Government of Canada
• .mb.ca — Manitoba
• .nb.ca — New Brunswick
• .nf.ca — Newfoundland (no longer accepting new registrations, replaced by .nl.ca)
• .nl.ca — Newfoundland and Labrador
• .ns.ca — Nova Scotia
• .nt.ca — Northwest Territories
• .nu.ca — Nunavut
• .on.ca — Ontario
• .pe.ca — Prince Edward Island
• .qc.ca — Quebec
• .sk.ca — Saskatchewan
• .yk.ca — Yukon

External links

• IANA .ca whois information (http://www.iana.org/root-whois/ca.htm)
• CIRA - The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (http://www.cira.ca/)