.bcn

Overview

.bcn is a generic top-level domain (geoTLD) created for the city of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. "BCN" is the common acronym for Barcelona (also the city's airport IATA code) and is used in the city council's online and offline communications. The TLD was proposed to serve institutional purposes related to the city and its administration.

History

• Introduced: 4 June 2015 (per source information)
• Delegated to the DNS root zone: 8 July 2015 (reported delegation date)
• Applicant / sponsor: Ajuntament de Barcelona (Barcelona City Council) applied for the string as an institutional TLD.
• Registry / operations: sources list registry and technical operators including Fundació puntCat and CoreNIC; ICANNWiki notes CORE and indicates the Municipality of Barcelona manages the TLD.

Usage and Audience

• Intended audience: the Barcelona City Council and its institutional departments and online services.
• Purpose: to provide a TLD for institutional use by the city administration and to promote the city's online identity.
• Branding: BCN is widely used as an abbreviation for Barcelona in media and by the city council (examples include existing use of bcn.cat, bcn.es, bcn.net).

Registration Rules

• Intended registration policy: the applicant stated the .bcn TLD "will be used exclusively by the Barcelona City Council" and will not be available for third-party registrations.
• Restrictions: exclusive institutional use by the City Council as described in the application; no public registration policy details (e.g., allowed characters or registration periods) are provided in the source texts.

SEO and Brand Impact

• Relationship with .cat: the .bcn initiative was presented as complementary to the .cat domain; the Barcelona City Council described it as cooperating with .cat.
• Public reaction: the proposal received criticism from the Generalitat de Catalunya and several cultural and technological personalities in Catalonia concerned about overlap or fragmentation of Catalan/Barcelona online identity.
• Recognition: using the BCN acronym leverages an established shorthand and airport code, supporting local brand recognition for city services.

Notable Cases or Examples

• .barcelona: another geoTLD for the city exists (.barcelona), which the city council also applied for as a community-oriented TLD.
• Existing city usage: the city council already uses domains such as bcn.cat for its main website, illustrating the institutional branding rationale behind .bcn.

% IANA WHOIS server
% for more information on IANA, visit http://www.iana.org
% This query returned 1 object

domain:       BCN

organisation: Municipi de Barcelona
address:      Pl. Sant Miquel ed. Novíssim, pl. 3a.
address:      Barcelona 08002
address:      Spain

contact:      administrative
name:         .bcn Admin Contact
organisation: Fundació puntCAT
address:      Plaça Nova 5, 7a planta
address:      Barcelona 08002
address:      Spain
phone:        +34 936 750 354
fax-no:       +34 934 672 959
e-mail:       newgtlds@domini.cat

contact:      technical
name:         .bcn Tech Contact
organisation: CORE Association
address:      Cours de Rive 2
address:      Geneva CH-1204
address:      Switzerland
phone:        +41 22 312 5610
fax-no:       +41 22 312 5612
e-mail:       dnsmaster@corenic.org

nserver:      ANYCAST10.IRONDNS.NET 195.253.64.12 2a01:5b0:4:0:0:0:0:c
nserver:      ANYCAST23.IRONDNS.NET 195.253.65.11 2a01:5b0:5:0:0:0:0:b
nserver:      ANYCAST24.IRONDNS.NET 195.253.65.12 2a01:5b0:5:0:0:0:0:c
nserver:      ANYCAST9.IRONDNS.NET 195.253.64.11 2a01:5b0:4:0:0:0:0:b
ds-rdata:     20194 10 2 2c1faf28afb91e2a2fe1a6c27e480ce2077ccff57cd7e8eac1b658cf2b9d9260

whois:        whois.nic.bcn

status:       ACTIVE
remarks:      Registration information: http://www.barcelona.cat

created:      2015-06-04
changed:      2022-01-07
source:       IANA