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Online multilingualism remains a challenge: IDN World Report 2020 findings now available

27 Oct. 2021

The IDN World Report findings on the 2020 collected data have been uploaded on idnworldreport.eu.

 

The major findings are:

  • A slight decline in the number of IDNs registered across the world. Registrations at the end of 2019 were 8.3 million compared with 8.2 million in 2020
  • IDNs comprise 2.5% of the world’s domains. The data includes IDNs across both ccTLDs and gTLDs, first and second level
  • China has the largest number of IDNs, 3.9 million
  • 14% growth in .eu IDNs since 2019

 

The major challenge to mass uptake of IDNs continues to be their poor usability in email, online user identifiers and browsers, applications and devices including Internet of Things.  

“IDNs have great potential to support linguistic diversity online, enabling people all over the world to navigate the internet in their own language. Without urgent efforts from multiple stakeholders to improve the usability of IDNs, that potential will not be achieved”, comments Emily Taylor, lead author of the IDN World Report.

 

The IDN World Report is a research project of EURid, UNESCO and the Coordination Center for TLD.RU/.РФ, which started in 2011 and features the cooperation of the regional ccTLD organisations.

 

View the 2020 IDN World Report at idnworldreport.eu.