until the late 20th century, instead of a central, official tartan registry, several independent organisations located in scotland, canada, and the united states documented and recorded tartans. in the 1960s, a scottish society called the scottish tartans society (now defunct) was created to record and preserve all known tartan designs. the society's register, the "register of all publicly known tartans" ("rapkt"), contains about 2,700 different designs of tartan. the society, however, ran into financial troubles in about the year 2000, and folded. former members of the society then formed two new scottish-based organisations – the scottish tartans authority (sta) and the scottish tartans world register (stwr). both of these societies initially based their databases on the rapkt. the sta's database, the international tartan index (iti) consists of about 3,500 different tartans (with over 7,000, counting variants), as of 2004. the stwr's self-titled scottish tartans world register database is made up of about 3,000 different designs as of 2004. both organisations are registered scottish charities and record new tartans (free in the case of sts and for a fee in the case of stwr) on request. the sta's iti is larger, in part, because it has absorbed the entries recorded in the "tartanart" database formerly maintained by the merged international association of tartan studies and tartan educational and cultural association (iats/teca), based in the united states, and with whom the sta is directly affiliated.