There is virtually no district and no city in Germany, in which no .de domains are registered. Their precise distribution is mapped every year in the annual regional domain statistics published by DENIC. The registry managing all domains with the ending .de now presents the results of 2015. As of 31 December 2015, about 14.8 million .de domains were registered in 402 cities and districts of Germany. Adding to these numbers are more than 1.1 domains of holders whose place of residence is abroad. In total, more than 16 million .de domains were registered at the end of 2015. Domain development was moderate 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 metropolitan regions in the top ranks. With 995,563 domains, Berlin is still the undisputed number one in the overall ranking of the cities; Munich (605,511) and Hamburg (592,440) have swapped places. When referring the number of .de domains to the number of inhabitants, Osnabruck is in the lead again: With 1,444 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants, it remains far ahead of all its competitors. Like last year, the top trio of cities is complemented by Munich (430) and Bonn (415). In regard to the administrative districts, the frontrunners are located in the South of Germany again, namely Bavaria: Starnberg (473 domains) maintained its lead before Freising (430) and the district of Munich (377). The national average increased by two to 183 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants. (Higher individual statistical values reflect local domain investors with larger-scale domain portfolios.)

Regional Level: West German Domain Growth Outscores East German Increase
The ranking on the federal-state level for the number of domains related to inhabitants also remained unchanged. The state of Hamburg ‑ comprising the city of Hamburg and its wider outskirts ‑ with 339 domains per 1,000 inhabitants maintains its uncontested leading position and stays far ahead of Berlin (291) and the state of Bavaria with its vast lands (209). As in the preceding year, the state of Saxony-Anhalt (82) brings up the rear after the states of Thuringia and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with 106 domains per 1,000 inhabitants respectively. The national growth rate (1.28 percent) doubled compared to 2014 (0.63 percent). The average growth rate was exceeded by six German federal states in 2015. Especially Berlin (+4.2 percent) and Schleswig-Holstein (+2.5 percent) scored much higher. Excluding Berlin, the average domain growth among the states in the East of Germany dropped to 0.25 percent compared to 1.17 percent in 2014. Saxony is the only East German state that reported a negative growth (-0.1 percent). Related to absolute numbers, the so-called Free State of Saxony ranked ten with 0.53 registered domains. North Rhine Westphalia (3.30 million) and Bavaria (2.64 million) remained on ranks one and two.  

International Level: .de Is Highly Popular Also Beyond German Borders
The year-on-year total domain growth rate for 2014/2015 was 1.3 percent compared to 1.4 percent in 2013/2014. This is an increase by about 198,000 domains (previous year: 219,000). Furthermore, the 16.01 million .de domains that were registered at the end of 2015 included 1,114,358 domains of holders residing outside of Germany (2014: 1,096,960). This corresponds to an unchanged 6.9 percent of the total number of domains registered under .de. The holders of .de domains originate from 219 countries. As in the past, German domains are particularly popular in the United States (17 percent), the Netherlands (12 percent) as well as in the Russian Federation and the United Arab Emirates with 8 percent respectively. All in all, 16,009,814 domains were registered with DENIC on 31 December 2015. Statistically, 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 at https://www.denic.de/en/know-how/statistics/. 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.