On Mon, 28 Sep 1998, Rich Greenberg wrote:

> What you can do is look at the last qualifier in the address.  If its
> OTHER than "com", "mil", "gov", "org" or "net",  its normally a 2
> character country code.  I assume that somewhere on the web is a list
> of these codes but I don't know where it is.  A few that I know are:

Try:  http://www.nw.com/zone/iso-country-codes

As Rich points out there is no guarantee that a poster with an address
that ends in that two character country code is actually located in that
country.  In addition to the telnetting and dial-in reasons he cited,
there are also some small countries which make their country code
available, at a price, to ISPs which want very distinctive addresses.  (I
know of a woman who lives in New England who has a country code in her
address from a small country in the South Pacific because her ISP pays for
the use of that code).

In addition, people who actually do live and communicate from outside
the US may have an email address that ends in one of the 3 character
domain names.   Examples would be employees of multinational corporations,
multinational governmental organizations, the US military, diplomatic
personnel, etc.   For example, one of the subscribers to my list, a
Philippine national who lived and worked in Manila, once asked me why she
was not included in the country count for the Philippines (obtainable
by sending the message REVIEW <listname> BY COUNTRY to the LISTSERV
address).  The answer was simple: she worked for an international agency,
used their e-mail system, and had an e-mail address that ended in one of
the 3 character domain names.  Thus the number of subscribers per country
that one obtains by using that command is only approximate: it
underestimates the number of subscribers from outside the US and inflates
the number from within the US since all the 3 character code addresses are
considered part of the US domain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Judith Hopkins, Listowner of Autocat
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     My home page: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~ulcjh
     AUTOCAT home page:
     http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/units/cts/autocat/


 >
> If you see this 2 letter code (and can locate the matching country's
> list) the chances are very good that the node is located in that
> country.  There are exceptions,  and there is no guarantee that the user
> is also located in that country, as the user could be dialed in or
> telnetting internationaly.
>
> Most addresses ending in "com", "mil", "gov", "org" or "net" are located
> in the USA.  "Com" are businesses, "mil" are US Military sites, "gov"
> are national, state, or local government bodies, "org" is usually a
> non-profit organization,  and "net" is usually an internet related
> site.
>
> Again, there are exceptions, and again there is no guarantee that the
> user is also located in that country.  Most of the exceptions are nodes
> that were established early,  before the 2 char country codes started or
> they are multi-national organizations.
>