Not that often, and even when they do it often means very real issues in terms of governance of internet infrastructure.

> I'm not sure that making all domains depend on things that exist in the real world is a good idea.

But domains already depend on things which exist in the real world! Not only are they leased by real-world entities, but even the names of domains already refer to countries, companies, brands, products, activities, clubs, and people.

The real difference with what we have now is that it's a weird global monopoly that has shown it's willing to erode organizational principles in order to make a buck.

Splitting it up by sovereign nations is actually moving back closer to the decentralized principles of the internet, avoiding a single point of (political) failure, and creating subsections which can evolve separately and cover for one another.

Ex: Turkey's emerging dictatorship refuses to let anyone register erdogansucks.net.tr ? Fine, go register erdogansucks.net.de , and advertise with that instead.