Chinese internet users will soon be able to type internet addresses using their own language following a recent decision from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) earlier this month, which aims to introduce a wider range of languages to the internet.

From November 16 a number of nations and territories will be able to apply for Internet extensions reflecting their names in their own script.

For China, this means the characters prounced "zhongguo" and meaning China, will be a valid domain name as well as the current ".cn"

Currently, attempting to use an address written with Chinese characters only produces a page of online search results rather than a direct link to the desired website.

Along with the Chinese, more than 20 non-Latin languages including Japanese, Indian and Arabic will be valid for domain names thanks to the move, which the ICANN says is a major step towards the internationalization of the Internet.

According to a China News Service report, major internet browsers, like Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Google's Chrome and Firefox have cleared all technical obstacles for the introduction of the full Chinese addresses.

In anticipation of the move, leading search engines including Google and Yahoo have already started to index information about websites likely to use Chinese addresses.