[grapeskin]

A country can simply change its name without major conflict. The people still exist. Law and order never breaks down. But it becomes a "new" country.

That could result in existing TLDs going away.

One possible example would be Scotland voting to peacefully leave the UK. It's very possible the UK would change its name after that, since it's not really the union of those two kingdoms anymore.

[BoxOfRain]

If there's ever a need to change the British flag I hope the government takes the opportunity to incorporate the Welsh flag. It's easily the best flag in the UK if not Europe as a whole!

[MaxBarraclough]

Interestingly Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) still uses the .sz TLD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eswatini

[aix1]

> One possible example would be Scotland voting to peacefully leave the UK. It's very possible the UK would change its name after that, since it's not really the union of those two kingdoms anymore.

It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Scotland is part of the former bit (Great Britain) alongside England and Wales.

[Symbiote]

It's a union of three kingdoms, or 2-and-a-bit kingdoms:

   England and Wales (927)
 + Scotland (1707)
 + Ireland (1802)
 - most of Ireland (1922), leaving only Northern Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland would probably change its name if Scotland seceded, but perhaps to the United Kingdom of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The official ISO code (GB) would change (EI? EW?) but the reserved code (UK) need not.

[gbear605]

Theoretically Northern Ireland could join the Republic of Ireland and Wales and Scotland could both go independent, and then it’s definitely not a United Kingdom. What happens to the millions (?) of .co.uk websites?

[Joseph-Stalin]

You can still buy Soviet Union TLDs (.su). Does this mean .su owners will lose their domains in 5-10 years? Seems like there should be some kind of grandfathering clause.