diff --git a/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py b/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py
index bf9e317..fff8408 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_urlparse.py
@@ -316,6 +316,11 @@
         self.assertEqual(type(p.hostname), type(uri))
         self.assertEqual(type(p.path), type(uri))
 
+    def test_noslash(self):
+        # Issue 1637: http://foo.com?query is legal
+        self.assertEqual(urlparse.urlparse("http://example.com?blahblah=/foo"),
+                         ('http', 'example.com', '', '', 'blahblah=/foo', ''))
+
 def test_main():
     test_support.run_unittest(UrlParseTestCase)
 
diff --git a/Lib/urlparse.py b/Lib/urlparse.py
index 4bf0af3..7a2e6ce 100644
--- a/Lib/urlparse.py
+++ b/Lib/urlparse.py
@@ -169,13 +169,12 @@
     return url[:i], url[i+1:]
 
 def _splitnetloc(url, start=0):
-    for c in '/?#': # the order is important!
-        delim = url.find(c, start)
-        if delim >= 0:
-            break
-    else:
-        delim = len(url)
-    return url[start:delim], url[delim:]
+    delim = len(url)   # position of end of domain part of url, default is end
+    for c in '/?#':    # look for delimiters; the order is NOT important
+        wdelim = url.find(c, start)        # find first of this delim
+        if wdelim >= 0:                    # if found
+            delim = min(delim, wdelim)     # use earliest delim position
+    return url[start:delim], url[delim:]   # return (domain, rest)
 
 def urlsplit(url, scheme='', allow_fragments=True):
     """Parse a URL into 5 components: