DENIC's domain statistics for 2005: Statistically one in ten of Germany's inhabitants now has a domain registered – Big cities in the western part of Germany remain domain strongholds

Taking the indicator of the number of .de domains compared with the size of the population, Düsseldorf has now taken the number-one position off Munich, which had held it for many years. This emerges from DENIC's regional domain statistics for 2005. With 255 domains per thousand inhabitants, Düsseldorf has now nosed ahead of Munich, with 253. Taking the absolute figures, Berlin remains in front, with more than half a million .de domains registered at the end of 2005. The second-most were in Hamburg (350 000), and the third-most in Munich (316 000).

Considering Germany as a whole, the number of domains registered rose by 12.5% to just under 8.9 million in the course of 2005. Taking the federal states ("Länder"), the fastest growth, at more than 20%, occurred in Saxony, while Hamburg is the federal state with the largest number (202) of domains per thousand inhabitants. If the city-states are excluded, then the federal state of Hesse has the highest density of domains, with almost 127 per thousand inhabitants, whilst the lowest density is in Saxony-Anhalt, with only 42 per thousand inhabitants. The mean density for the whole of Germany is 107.5 domains per thousand inhabitants, which means that, statistically, slightly more than one inhabitant in ten has their own .de domain available to them. Germany is thus also amongst the European leaders in this respect, coming in second place, with only Denmark ahead of it.

The regional domain-distribution pattern still displays very marked differences. Virtually all the domain strongholds are in the conurbations in the western part of the country, such as Munich, Hamburg, the Rhine-Main region (around Frankfurt) and the Rhineland region, taking in Cologne, Bonn and Düsseldorf. In the eastern federal states, the domain numbers are still way below the national mean in terms of both the absolute figures and in relation to the size of the population.

All of the figures given here are based on an analysis of the domain database belonging to DENIC, the German domain registry, as it stood on 31 December 2005. As in previous years, the task of processing the data was assumed by Professor Dr. Rolf Sternberg and his team at the Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography at the University of Hanover.

The entire evaluation is available in the form of an Excel spreadsheet on DENIC's web pages, from where it can be downloaded. Information is available for each local-government district (i.e. "Kreise" and "kreisfreie Städte") and includes both absolute values and the data regarding the number of domains relative to the number of inhabitants. There are also maps showing the absolute and relative distributions of the domains.