The number of German Internet addresses (domains) has crossed the one million mark. Early Tuesday morning saw the registration of the one millionth domain at DENIC eG Frankfurt, which is the organisation responsible for administrating the domains with country code .de. The owner of domain #1000000 is Hasenkopf Maschinenbau GmbH Schwarzenfeld, a city located in the Oberpfalz region of Germany. The mechanical engineering company's online presence will be constituted under the domain stretchanlagen.de.

The Internet in Germany is growing rapidly. In January 1994 only about 1,000 domains were registered, almost exclusively to scientific institutions and IT companies. In December 1997 the number of Internet addresses reached 100,000 and since April 1999 it has doubled to 1,000,000. Currently about 100,000 new domains are registered every month.

The domain names of the form name.de uniquely identify a German Internet user or offering, where .de is the abbreviation for Deutschland (Germany). The number of German web pages is by far greater than one million, because under one domain name a practically unlimited number of web pages can exist.

DENIC eG as central registry for domain names with country code .de ensures the administration and availability of the German Internet addresses. A domain name is usually registered within one or two days and can then be used immediately by the mandator.