Many national TLD holders (ccTLDs) control a TLD in local language. .lk registry, for example, also controls .ලංකා and .இலங்கை (sounding "Lanka" "Ilangei" in S

Many national TLD holders (ccTLDs) control a TLD in local language. .lk registry, for example, also controls .ලංකා and .இலங்கை (sounding "Lanka" "Ilangei" in Sinhalese and Tamil, the two other official languages in Sri Lanka), and they do not cost $185K. In fact, ccTLDs don't cost any money as far as I'm aware. DNS servers are run by the government funding but there is no cost to pay to ICANN.