On 18 April 2012 at 12:56 CEST it was registered, the 15 millionth domain with a .de ending. Its flowery name: floristennetzwerk.de, which means florists' network. "With my website I want to provide a purchasing portal for florists to order flowers and plants, avoiding the usual channels via intermediaries. I am a qualified florist myself and can build on 30 years of experience.

And since I want to reach the green trade in Germany with my offer, it was clear to me that I needed a domain under .de. I have the most beautiful profession in the world. Flowers make people smile and are the only product that does not really need any marketing." says the domain holder Alexander Kleerebezem.

He is not alone with his choice. Every month, an average of about 50,000 .de domains is registered with DENIC. If private persons, medium-sized businesses or international companies doing business in Germany - a .de domain is first choice for nearly all of them.

From 0 to 15 million: How it all began …

What started in the year 1986 with .de's registration in the IANA database has evolved into a real success story and made .de the largest ccTLD in the world.

In the beginning, the domain names are administered by a network operator located in the USA. In 1988, administration is transferred to the University of Dortmund that initially handles it rather informally and simply records the registrations in a manual list. Starting with only six .de domains, the list soon commences to grow at a continually increasing pace. About a decade later, time has come to create a sustainable basis for domain registration and administration. Early in 1997,  37 German Internet service providers thus found DENIC eG. At that time, about 50,000 addresses are already registered with DENIC - and there is a clear upward trend. In April 1999, DENIC records an inventory of 500,000 .de domain names, and in October 1999 the first million-mark is passed. A period of sharp continual growth up to one million a year follows.

Interest in .de domains still is immense today: "To have one's own Internet presence is quite attractive for German citizens. Nearly every sixth of them has their own .de domain. It has always been our special concern to underscore the importance of .de as a country code. To this end, we enabled the use of special characters of the German alphabet like umlauts or letters with accents and the German eszett in domain names. This makes it easy to identify oneself with the Top Level Domain .de," explains Sabine Dolderer, CEO of DENIC. "And of course it also is the commitment and great performance of our members who offer first-class service to the end client that has helped us to become the largest country code Top Level Domain in the world."

About DENIC eG

As the central registry, DENIC administers the now more than 15 million domains under the Top Level Domain .de and thus provides a crucial resource for users of the Internet. It sees its role as that of a competent, impartial provider of services for all domain holders and Internet users. With more than 120 employees, DENIC creates the foundation through its work for German Internet pages and e-mail addresses to be accessible throughout the world. The about 280 members of the Cooperative are IT or telecommunications businesses based in Germany and elsewhere. Working in cooperation with them and other partners, DENIC is committed to guarantee the secure operation of the Internet and its further worldwide development as a not-for-profit organization. It operates the automatic electronic registration system for its members, runs the domain database for the Top Level Domain .de and the German ENUM domain (.9.4.e164.arpa), manages the name server services for the .de zone at currently 16 locations distributed throughout the world, and renders a considerable contribution to the further organizational and technical development of the Internet in cooperation with international bodies (e.g. ICANN, CENTR, IETF).

For further information please contact:

DENIC eG
Public Relations
Fon: +49 69 27235-274
E-Mail: mailto:presse@denic.de