.gov is for "Government" which is a Generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) - Not associated with a country. However, registrants are limited to USA.

Root: ICANN
Registration web site: http://www.nic.gov/
Whois server: whois.nic.gov
Whois web interface: http://www.nic.gov/cgi-bin/whois
Second Level Domains Registered

Notes: General Services Administrations operates domain. See the GSA policy for .gov.

Domain Registration Rules:
-
Warning: include(/home/linksale/domain/local_require/local_gov.txt) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/wreile/whois3-includes/whois-gov.php on line 20

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/linksale/domain/local_require/local_gov.txt' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /home/wreile/whois3-includes/whois-gov.php on line 20

-
Warning: include(/home/linksale/domain/other_require/other_gov.txt) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/wreile/whois3-includes/whois-gov.php on line 21

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '/home/linksale/domain/other_require/other_gov.txt' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/pear') in /home/wreile/whois3-includes/whois-gov.php on line 21