The United Kingdom's Domain Dilemma: 43.8 Million Hostnames, Two Versions of One Country Code, and a Split That Won't Heal
We analyzed 43.8 million observed hostnames in the .uk namespace — the 9th-largest TLD on Earth — and asked why Britain still runs two competing versions of its own country code. Twelve years after Nominet opened direct .uk registration alongside legacy .co.uk, the legacy format still dominates. Inside the split, the governance crisis, and how much of the namespace actually resolves. Refreshed June 2026 with first-party DNS resolution data.