Applicants are permitted to apply for the following types of strings, including their allocatable variant string(s), which are considered Geographic Name gTLDs:
- Name of capital city of any country or territory (in any language) listed in the ISO3166-1 standard;
- City names, where the applicant declares that it intends to use the gTLD for purposes associated with the city name;
- An exact match of a sub-national place name, such as a county, province, or state, listed in the ISO 3166-2 standard;
- Strings listed as a UNESCO region or appearing on the Geographic Regions section of the "Standard country or area codes for statistical use (M49)".
The 5 regions recognized by UNESCO include: Africa, Arab States, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, Latin America and the Caribbean (as of May 2025).
Applicants may choose to identify their applied-for string as a Geographic Name during the application process. However, regardless of whether or not an applicant designates its applied-for string as a Geographic Name, ICANN will evaluate whether an applied-for string meets the criteria for a Geographic Name, because these types of applications must satisfy additional requirements to be approved.