A DNS zone is a portion of the global DNS namespace. This namespace is defined by the DNS protocol (RFC xxxx) and is laid out in a tree structure from right to left, such that divisions of the namespace are performed by prepending a series of characters followed by period ('.'), to the upper namespace (e.g. 'com.' to 'wikipedia.com.'). DNS may refer to: Domain Name System Direct numerical simulation Doctor of Nursing Science 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid This page concerning a three-letter acronym or abbreviation is a disambiguation page—a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Many modern computer languages provide support for namespaces. ... In computer science, a tree is a widely-used computer data structure that emulates a tree structure with a set of linked nodes. ...

The correlation between domain names and DNS zones is that each period indicates a break in DNS namespace where authority "can" be delegated. This delegation may be bureaucratic (as in top level domains which are tracked by organisations and governments) or technical (where a system becomes responsible for the management of information within that zone) or both.

Thus a reasonable definition of a zone would be a portion of the DNS namespace where responsibility has been delegated.

In the context of the current global domain system, root domain is administered by a set of 13 root servers, and delegation is handed down to organisations that administer the top level domains (TLDs) like 'com.', 'net.', 'org.' as well as country domains like 'ie.'. Thus on a global level the DNS root may be considered a zone, as may each of the TLDs. The AMS-IX mirror of the K root-server. ... A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of which Internet domain names consist of. ...

The majority (probably all) of these high level delegations are both bureaucratic and technical, but specific delegation of zones beneath these defined root elements is dependent on the organisations involved. For example, the 'uk.' domain is further broken into specific zones for specific purposes (e.g. 'co.uk.' is for companies) before being delegated to individual people or organisations.

Once we reach a locally (i.e. single organisation) administered portion of the DNS namespace, it becomes more flexible. However, a domain name will be represented by a single zone in the majority of cases. That zone will manage the entire domain's namespace serving out information like Internet addresses (i.e. translating "en.wikipedia.org." to 145.97.39.155) even when more complex logical divisions of the namespace are used (for example, we create a subnet and name it internal.wikipedia.org. and prepend desktop system names to it).

In more complicated scenarios a zone (e.g. 'wikipedia.org.) may well be delegated, perhaps numerous times, so that there will be a distinct 'internal.mycompany.com' zone and an 'external.mycompany.com' zone. These zones may then be administered, updated, and managed on entirely distinct systems.

Common DNS zones

The most common DNS zones are the ones already mentioned, the ubiquitous DNS root zone, and the TLDs. These are the domains that people commonly purchase to represent their companies or personal presence on the Internet (or more precisely, they purchase it to obtain a website address), but there are other zones within DNS system that play a vital role in the Internet. A DNS root zone is the top level of the DNS hierarchy for a given DNS system. ...

The most important of these domains is the 'in-addr.arpa.' zone. The 'in-addr.arpa.' zone is a DNS zone (and, note, portion of the namespace) that holds a mapping from Internet addresses to names. This is the opposite (but not equal) transaction to normal whereby we look up a name to find an address. This can be useful in a number of ways and is detailed better in Domain name system. The domain name system (DNS) stores and associates many types of information with domain names, but most importantly, it translates domain names (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. ...

Technical details

The above is not very specific about the technical details of what a zone is. This is partly due to the unspecific nature of a zone (i.e. bureaucratic/technical), as well as the many different systems that manage these zone, and finally because of the extensive use of domain style naming for totally unrelated functions.

Not that the above are problems, per-se, but they do make the technical discussion cluttered with qualifications and clarifications that eventually make it entirely indigestible. As such we will stick to discussing the technical details in respect of DNS zones in their primary function (administration of DNS namespace) and use (serving Internet addresses to requesting systems). Where technical examples or details are required we will again restrict ourselves to the most common DNS system ISC's BIND.

 zone types (primary, secondary) 

 zone transfers