2022 DENIC Domain Statistics

In 2022, the German country code .de once again gained in popularity. At the end of 2022, the number of .de domains registered worldwide had grown to more than 17.4 million. Every year, the precise geographic distribution of .de domains is mapped in the annual regional domain statistics published by DENIC. The registry managing all domains with the ending .de now presents the results of 2022. The current .de domain map, which is provided in a new format, enables interactive comparisons across five years and is complemented by new dynamic tables.

On 31 December 2022, 15.6 million .de domains were registered in the 400 cities and districts of Germany. Adding to these numbers are more than 1.8 domains of holders whose place of residence is abroad. In total, 17,420,367 domains were registered with DENIC on 31 December 2022. Statistically, every fifth inhabitant of the Federal Republic of Germany had registered a domain under the TLD .de.

Domain development was very positive again in 2022: All in all, the .de domains under management increased by 260,000, the number of.de domains registered in German cities and districts grew by about 110,000. The west-east divide in the distribution of .de domains across Germany remained nearly unchanged.

Municipal Level: German Districts Score Larger Growth Than Cities

Looking at absolute domain numbers, the top places were held by the large cities again. Scoring 999,426 .de domains, Berlin stayed clearly in the lead, ahead of Hamburg (613,232) and Munich (550,097), who swapped ranks. Also when referring the number of .de domains to the number of inhabitants, the top ranking has remained more or less the same: Osnabruck comes first again: With 1,669 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants, it still is far ahead of the other two top runners in the city league, Bonn (373) and Munich (370). In regard to the districts, the frontrunners were located in the south of Germany again, namely Bavaria: Miesbach (632 domains) came first, preceding Starnberg (508) and Freising (416). The national average was 186 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants (higher individual statistical values reflect local domain investors with larger-scale domain portfolios). About one quarter of the cities and districts included in the analysis exceeded the reference value, whereby the number of cities (50) with above-average values was higher than the respective number of districts (44). Measured in absolute numbers, domain growth was considerably more pronounced in the 294 districts than in the 106 cities.

Regional Level: Growth in the West of Germany Slightly Exceeds Increase in the East

The ranking on the federal-state level for the number of domains related to inhabitants also was consistent in 2022. The state of Hamburg – comprising the city of Hamburg and its wider outskirts – with 331 domains per 1,000 inhabitants maintained its uncontested leading position and stayed far ahead of Berlin (273) and the state of Bavaria with its vast lands (208). Even though they also recorded an increase in domain numbers, the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (110), Thuringia (108) and Saxony-Anhalt (86) once again brought up the rear. The overall national growth rate related to the number of domains amounted to 0.8 percent on the previous year (1.4%). Looking at the complete German territory, a total of nine federal states scored values above the mean value, with Bremen (4.4%), Hamburg (2.3%) and Lower Saxony (2.0%) in the lead. Except for Berlin (-0.6%) and Bavaria (-0.4%), all German federal states scored an increase in 2022. The percentage growth of Brandenburg (0,2%), Thuringia (0.3%), Hesse (0,6 %), Saxony-Anhalt (0.7%) und Schleswig-Holstein (0.7%), however, was below the federal average.

If Berlin is not taken into consideration, the 2022 average percentage domain growth among the states in the east of Germany (10.78%) was slightly below that of those in the west (0.93%). As in the last years, the largest number of domains was recorded for North Rhine-Westphalia (3,402,791), which experienced also the highest absolute annual growth (+46,612). The so-called Free State of Saxony with 546,762 registered .de domains achieved the highest density and the largest annual growth (1.2%) among the federal states in the east of the country and maintained place ten again in the overall German ranking. The smallest number of .de domains – even though it scored the highest percentage growth on an annual basis – continued to be reported for the city state of Bremen (133,938).