[dragonwriter]

There was a period right when lots of entities decided that they needed a web address where the US government was making an effort to get everyone who wasn't the federal government (including local and state governments, federal contractors, etc.) off of .gov and stop new non-federal registrants to .gov (I don't think it lasted long, but I distinctly remember it occurring), there was a defined hierarchy for local governments under .us, but most local governments weren't aware of it, and I'm not sure the registrars they went to dealt with .us domains, and people ended up just doing whatever...