How to Find Government Websites

The federal government, states and most major cities have websites. All federal websites end with ".gov". Unfortunately, the domain name registration system for the Internet does not make it easy to find many of the non-federal sites. Although efforts are underway to standardize government domain names in the Unites States, the system has not yet been fully implemented. Government websites for foreign countries follow a similar pattern. Find sites in the United States and other countries with these tips.

Instructions

1. Find federal government websites by name or by department at the official federal agency website USA.gov. If you know the name of the federal agency that you want, you can also type its acronym and add ".gov" into your browser, in most cases, to get there directly. The National Institutes of Health's site is simply www.nih.gov.

2. Find the White House, the President and Cabinet members under the "Executive Branch" link; Congress, under the Legislative Branch; and the Supreme Court under the Judicial Branch.

3. Look in the tab for "Government Agencies" and click on USA.gov's "State Government" link to navigate to the official website of all 50 states. Within the state listings pages you can find valuable information about state agencies, legislators and governors, as well federal courts and offices located in each state.

4. Find websites for U.S. territories like Puerto Rico, Samoa and Guam on the "State Government" web page at USA.gov.

5. Search for specific services in federal websites by using Google's special U.S. government search page to avoid looking through thousands of web pages.

6. Find government websites for many of the world's countries by using the links at Northwestern University's library. Almost all foreign countries use an assigned top-level domain abbreviation for both government and business websites. Access over 100 official websites, ranging from Afghanistan to Zambia. Note that many of the foreign government websites are not in English, but you will be able to obtain the correct URL for translation.

Tips & Warnings

• Use the Census Bureau's data from the most recent census to identify smaller cities and municipalities by name and county. Look for individual counties and cities within a state by searching the statelocalgov.net website. The Census bureau's website also contains links to other government websites such as state congressional districts.

• Get information about over 100 federal government services at USA.gov. Download, complete and submit many commonly used forms here, too.

• Remember to bookmark sites or save them to social bookmark sites like Delicious so others can find this information too.

Resources

• United States federal government official site
• Special federal government search page
• City and county government sites
• Links to international government and agencies