.shaolin
Is .shaolin a real TLD? Who’s applying to run it?
Nobody is chasing .shaolin, as of 7 October 2026. One applicant claimed it and is out. We keep the entry on the record either way.
- Journey To The West
Niche kung fu culture string tied to one famous temple; fans and schools may register, but few will use it as a serious primary identity.
martial arts schools and academies claiming Shaolin lineage, kung fu and wushu practitioners, and fan or culture projects around Shaolin-style martial arts and its media footprint
In Journey To The West's published portfolio of 323 strings submitted in the ICANN 2026 round. Their catalog line: “The temple where martial arts became legend.”
The 2012 applications making the most similar bet. Chosen by AI from every string in that round, without being told what happened to any of them.
Same bet: a single religious institution applying for the heritage name that a much wider lay community already uses as its own identity, so it only works if that institution's stewardship claim is accepted by everyone else who calls themselves that.
Same bet: a named faith community's own proper noun, sought by the community's central institution as a closed identity namespace for affiliated bodies rather than as a market anyone can buy into.
Same bet in its narrower reading — the proper name of one specific religious institution used as its own corporate-style namespace, matching Shaolin-as-temple, though it lacks the genre-term spillover Shaolin carries.
What a .shaolin domain is
.shaolin is not a TLD yet. It is a string on our record of the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round, filed under Culture. Nobody is chasing .shaolin today. The applicants that claimed it are out.
Is the .shaolin domain extension real yet?
.shaolin is not yet a domain extension you can register: nothing resolves under it, and no registrar sells names in it. Nobody has applied for it on the public record; the ICANN 2026 new gTLD round is the process that would decide whether it becomes one.
When can you buy a .shaolin domain?
You can’t yet. A .shaolin name can only be registered once the string is delegated (added to the DNS root) and its registry opens. Last round's closest parallel to .shaolin was .mormon, delegated on 19 November 2014.
Is .shaolin a real TLD?
Not yet. .shaolin is not in the DNS root, so nothing resolves under it. It’s here because an applicant claimed .shaolin and is no longer in it. We keep the entry, and every entry on this page links to its source.
- Journey To The West · now abandonedICANN
- Journey To The West · first recordedJourney To The West Corporation
“.shaolin · Martial & Strategy · “The temple where martial arts became legend.””Journey To The West Corporation
- I place this in the 10-29 vanity/narrow band. The string names a single famous monastery and its associated martial-arts tradition, so the natural buyer pool is kung fu schools and fan projects rather than a broad category; the name's close association with one religious institution is likely to chill third-party commercial use as a primary identity. It is not in the 30-49 band because, by analogy with broader wellness/sport strings like .yoga and .fitness (flagged as analogy), even much wider lifestyle TLDs have struggled to become volume namespaces with meaningful aftermarkets, and .shaolin is far narrower than those. It is not in the 1-9 band because a real global community of Shaolin-lineage schools and enthusiasts exists and some genuine registrations and fan use are plausible over the next 5 years. My main market uncertainty is whether the temple or its affiliated organizations would embrace and legitimize the namespace, versus treating third-party use as a rights problem, which would suppress serious adoption.