The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) announced Wednesday that the top-level Chinese domain name .zhongguo (written in pinyin) has been approved by the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a nonprofit body that oversees Internet addresses, chinanews.com.cn reported.

Domain names with the suffix .zhongguo in both simplified and traditional Chinese characters are ready for use. People can now visit Shanghai World Expo's website expo2010.cn by inputting in Chinese shanghaishibohui.zhongguo (pinyin) into their web browsers.

More than 90 percent of Chinese ministries and provincial departments, more than 95 percent of news websites and more than 90 percent of China’s "211 Project" key universities have already opened their ".zhongguo" domain names, chinanews.com.cn said.

The application for the .zhongguo domain name was submitted by the CNNIC to the ICANN on Nov 16, 2009.

(China Daily April 29, 2010)