DENIC, the registry for .de domains, presents the results of the regional domain statistics 2012. It includes 14.3 million domains in 402 German towns and districts. Adding to these numbers are more than 860,000 domains of holders whose place of residence is abroad. In total, about 15.3 million .de domains were registered at the end of 2012. Even though growth has slowed down a little, the general trend of domain development of the preceding years continued in 2012.

Municipal level: Metropolitan regions remain in the lead

Looking at absolute domain figures, the leading trio remains unchanged. With 884,053 domains, Berlin still is the undisputed number one in the overall ranking of the cities, followed by Munich with slightly less domains than last year (595,878) and Hamburg (584,036) on rank three. However, when referring the number of .de domains to the number of inhabitants, it is not the German capital (Berlin) that comes first among the incorporated cities: Osnabruck with 902 .de domains per 1 000 inhabitants holds place one. Munich (440) and Bonn (429) follow on the second and third place respectively. Among the administrative districts, Amberg-Sulzbach (916) keeps its top position. Like last year, Starnberg (487) and Freising (464) score second and third, with registration numbers far above the Federal average of 175 domains per 1,000 inhabitants.

Regional level: East scores far better than West

On the federal-state level, the city state of Hamburg with 327 domains per 1,000 inhabitants maintains its uncontested leading position and stays far ahead of Berlin (255) and the territorial state of Bavaria (213). The lowest number of domains per capita is recorded for Saxony-Anhalt again (100 domains), which brings up the rear after Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia with 102 domains respectively. If you look at the growth rates, however, all of Germany's new federal states exceed the national average of 3.9 percent. As regards Germany's old federal states, only the city states of Berlin (5.2%) and Hamburg (5%) and the federal state of Lower Saxony (5.3%) score that high. The lowest growth rate (1.8 percent) is recorded for Bavaria. Related to absolute numbers, however, the Free State of Bavaria ranks second with nearly 2.7 million .de domains after North Rhine Westphalia with 3.2 million.

International level: Large demand for .de beyond German borders

The year-on-year total domain growth rate for 2011/2012 was 3.7 percent compared to 5.0 percent in 2010/2011. This is an increase of about 543,000 domains (previous year: 702,000). Adding to these are more than 860,000 domains of holders residing outside of Germany. This corresponds to approx. 5.7 percent of the total number of domains registered under .de. German domains are demanded above all in the United States (13%), Switzerland (11%) and the Netherlands (10%). All in all, 15,283,687 domains were registered with DENIC on 31 December 2012. Statistically, every fifth inhabitant of the Federal Republic of Germany has registered a domain under the TLD .de. Thus, Germany 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 analysis in form of an Excel file for all the 402 cities and districts in the statistics section of the DENIC website for downloading. 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 of non-German nationality (www.denic.de/en/background/statistics/regional-distribution.html).

DENIC eG
Public Relations Office
presse[at]denic.de
Phone: +49 69 27235-274