In every district and every city of Germany, you find .de domains. They are literally everywhere. The regional domain statistics 2014 published by DENIC, the registry for .de domains, map their distribution in detail. At 31 December 2014, about 14.6 million .de domains were registered in 402 cities and districts of Germany. Adding to these numbers are more than one million domains of holders whose place of residence is abroad. In total, about 15.8 million .de domains were registered at the end of 2014. Domain development in 2014 was slightly slower than in the preceding years and confirmed the East-West divide of .de domain distribution.

Municipal level: Metropolitan regions remain in the lead

Looking at absolute domain numbers, one still finds three metropolises on the top ranks. With 955,484 domains, Berlin remains the undisputed number one in the overall ranking of the cities. Despite minor domain losses, Hamburg (592,192) consolidated the second place before Munich (591,199). When referring the number of .de domains to the number of inhabitants, Osnabruck is in the lead again: With 1,416 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants, it scored a significant increase on 2013. Munich (426) moved from rank three to rank two among the German cities. Third in the top trio is Bonn (422), which last was in this league in 2012. As regards the administrative districts, last year's number three, Starnberg (474 domains), took the lead. Freising (460) successfully defended its position on rank two. It is followed by the administrative district of Munich (387). The federal average increased by four to 181 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants. (Individual statistical outliers can be due to local domain investors with larger-scale domain portfolios.)

Regional level: East slightly outperforms West in domain growth

On the federal level, the leading trio remains unchanged. The city state of Hamburg with 341 domains per 1,000 inhabitants maintains its uncontested leading position and stays far ahead of Berlin (283) and the territorial state of Bavaria (209). As in the preceding year, Saxony-Anhalt (81) brings up the rear after Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia with 105 domains per 1,000 inhabitants respectively. The national growth rate further declined to 0.63 percent compared to 1.7 percent in 2013. Far better than the average growth rate score Berlin (+4.6 percent) and Schleswig-Holstein (+4.1 percent). Among the federal states in the East of Germany, only Brandenburg (+1.4 percent) and Thuringia (+1 percent) exceed the annual mean value. However, declines in domain numbers are recorded only in the Western part of Germany, in Bavaria (-2.5 percent) and in the hanseatic cities of Bremen (-1.2 percent) and Hamburg (-1.1 percent). Nevertheless, related to absolute numbers, the Free State of Bavaria with more than 2.61 million .de domains still occupies rank two after North Rhine Westphalia, which remains in the lead with 3.25 million .de domains.

International level: Popularity of .de is increasing also beyond German borders

The year-on-year total domain growth rate for 2013/2014 was 1.4 percent compared to 2.0 percent in 2012/2013. This is an increase by about 219,000 domains (previous year: 309,000). Furthermore, the 15.8 million .de domains that were registered at the end of 2014 included 1,097,000 domains of holders resid-ing outside of Germany (2013: 986,000). This corresponds to about 6.9 percent of the total number of domains registered under .de. The holders of .de domains originate from 217 countries. Like in the past, German domains are particularly popular in the United States (15 percent) and the Netherlands (12 percent) as well as in Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates with 8 percent respectively. All in all, 15,811,430 domains were registered with DENIC on 31 December 2014. Statistically, nearly every fifth inhabitant of the Federal Republic of Germany has registered a domain under the TLD .de. Thus, Germany consistently ranks fourth in the world after the Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark.

Detailed online data available

You will find comprehensive data and graphic material as well as the complete regional analysis in form of an Excel file for all the 402 cities and districts in the statistics section of the DENIC website. We also make available the annual analyses since 1995. In addition to absolute values, the statistics provide data on the number of domains related to the number of inhabitants, complemented by maps and diagrams showing the absolute and the relative distribution of domestic domains as well as of domain holders residing outside of
Germany.