This is mainly a place-holder file to help divide up the long list of whois-server site names.... The two-letter top-level domains (AT, AU, CA, etc.) mostly include whois servers located outside the United States. RFC 1032 had this to say about these domain names: Countries that wish to be registered as top-level domains are required to name themselves after the two-letter country code listed in the international standard ISO-3166. The site names are organized alphabetically by the domain name of the whois-server machine, considering the labels (the individual components of the name, separated by dots) in reverse order. For example, FOO.AA, BAR.AB, BAZ.AB, etc. Notes: the following servers have information about organizations on the network within these wide coverage areas: server operated by coverage ------------------------------------------------------------------------ whois.apnic.net Asia Pacific Network Information Center Asia/Pacific whois.ripe.net Reseaux IP Europeens Europe .