DENIC's 2006 Domain Statistics: Fastest Growth Rate in Thuringia – Nuremberg catching up on Munich –Record Popularity for .de Domains outside of Germany too

Munich has clawed its way back into the number-one position in DENIC's domain statistics. Taking the parameter of the number of .de domains registered divided by the number of inhabitants, there is no city in Germany that can equal the Bavarian capital. That is one of the key outcomes of the annual regional domain statistics published for 2006 by the German registry, DENIC. Looking at the individual German federal states, it was Thuringia in the east that achieved the highest growth rate at 10.4%, but there is still a very evident west/east differential in the distribution of domains. Nearly all the big domain concentrations are still to be found in the large conurbations in the western part of Germany, such as Hamburg, the Rhine/Main region and the Rhineland.

It is also clear that .de domains are becoming more and more attractive outside of Germany too. At the end of 2005, around 160 000 .de domains were registered in the name of a holder outside of Germany. In the course of just one year, this figure rose to more than 580 000 – a gain of 266%. This rapid expansion is explained first and foremost by the growing importance of trading in domains, since the lion's share of the increase is due to a limited number of domain holders with portfolios stretching in some cases to tens of thousands of domains. This also explains why the United Arab Emirates tops the list of countries indicated for holders with an address outside of Germany.

There have also been several big regional shifts within Germany. The city of Nuremberg, for instance, jumped from sixteenth place at the end of 2005 to second place at the end of 2006. With 264 domains per thousand inhabitants, it was only beaten by Munich (282). Taking the absolute figures of .de domains registered, by way of contrast, the big three cities remain the same, namely Berlin with more than 547 000, followed by Hamburg (386 000) and Munich (356 000).

Compared with the previous year, the nationwide mean for growth in .de domains was 8%, which meant an absolute growth of approximately 800 000 to a new total at the end of 2006 of some 9 6 million .de domains registered. Of the German federal states, the highest growth rates were recorded for Thuringia with 10.4%, followed by Bavaria (10.2%) and Hamburg (10.1%). As in previous years, the percentage increases in the eastern federal states were higher than in the western ones. However, the "new" (i.e. eastern) federal states started off at a lower level and thus only slightly narrowed the gap on the older (western) federal states. Taking the period since 2000, however, the absolute increase in domain numbers has been nearly 327%, or more than 340% relative to the size of the population.

Taking this same parameter, the Hanseatic city-state of Hamburg leads with 221 domains per thousand inhabitants. Excluding the city-states and considering only those with bigger territories, the largest domain concentration is to be found in Hesse with approximately 136 domains per thousand inhabitants. Still speaking in relative terms, the sparsest distribution of .de domains remains in the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt with only 50 per thousand inhabitants. The nationwide mean is 116 domains per thousand inhabitants, which is the statistical equivalent of slightly better than one German resident in nine having their own .de domain. In this respect, Germany is one of the leading countries in Europe, occupying third place behind Denmark and the Netherlands.

All the figures given here are based on an evaluation of the database run by the German registry, DENIC, as it stood on 31 December 2006. As in previous years, the data was processed by Professor Dr. Rolf Sternberg and his team at the Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography at the University of Hanover.

The complete evaluation has been made available in the form of an Excel table and can be downloaded free from DENIC's webpages. The information is broken down to the level of local-government units (county districts, Kreise, and autonomous municipalities, kreisfreie Städte). The table contains not only the absolute values for each geographic unit but also the relative values of domains divided by the number of inhabitants. There are also maps showing the absolute and relative distributions of domains and data on domain holders outside of Germany.