History of the Pacific Islands as British protectorate by a Resident Commissioner from 1892 to 1916 as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT), and later as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1974. A referendum was held in December 1974 to determine whether the Gilbert Islands and Ellice Islands should each have their own administration. As a consequence of the referendum, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony ceased to exist on 1 January 1976 and the separate British colonies of Kiribati and Tuvalu came into existence. Tuvalu became fully independent within the Commonwealth on 1 October 1978. On
Top-level domain the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and is in charge of maintaining the DNS root zone. IANA currently distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains: domain (.arpa) Originally, the top-level domain space was organized into three main groups: "Countries", "Categories", and "Multiorganizations". An additional "temporary" group consisted of only the initial DNS domain, arpa, and was intended for transitional purposes toward the stabilization of the domain name system. As of 2015, IANA distinguishes the following groups of top-level domains: Countries are designated in the Domain Name System by their two-letter ISO country code; there are exceptions, however (e.g., .uk). This