Systems

Domain Name System

Also Known As DNS

Naming System

Citation Formats

General Reference

Computing Atlas. "Domain Name System." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/domain-name-system.

APA Style

Computing Atlas. (n.d.). Domain Name System. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/domain-name-system

BibTeX

@misc{computingatlas-domain-name-system,
  author = {Computing Atlas},
  title = {Domain Name System},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/domain-name-system},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical, distributed naming system that translates human readable domain names into the numerical IP addresses needed to locate computers and services on the Internet. It delegates naming authority to a distributed network of authoritative name servers, giving the Internet a scalable, fault tolerant naming infrastructure.

Facts

Year

1983 1

Significance

Created by Paul Mockapetris in 1983 at the University of Southern California, with specifications published by the IETF the same year as RFC 882 and RFC 883, it replaced the earlier centralized HOSTS.TXT host table system, enabling the Internet to scale far beyond what manual host table distribution could support. 1

Cross-Tradition Connections