A two-character component of an e-mail or Web address that identifies a country, also known as a "domain extension." Computers read addresses from right to left. Thus, on encountering sven@univ.oslo.net.se, the message would first be sent to Sweden, since se is the country code for Sweden. Swedish routers would then send the message to univ.oslo.net where it will be waiting for Sven the next time he signs on.

Country Codes in Search Engines
Google and Yahoo! have language selection boxes for narrowing searches within particular countries; however, other search engines let you specify the country code in the search text. For example, in AltaVista, to find Web sites originating in France and devoted to French wines, you might try +wine +domain:fr. To do the same thing in Go, try +wine +site:fr. See country codes A-E, country codes F-M and country codes N-Z. For a unique way to profit from a country code, see .tv.