Berlin, which became the first German city to pass the one million .de domain name registrations mark in 2016, has easily retained its position as the German city with the most .de domain name registrations with 1,010,140 at the end of the year, up from 1,006,806 at the end of 2016 and 995,563 at the end of 2015, according to the annual DENIC Domain Map released recently.
Berlin extended its lead in the year over the cities second and third for the most .de registrations - Munich (594,756) and Hamburg (577,127). However rather than increase registrations, Munich and Hamburg dropped in 2017. At the end of 2016 Munich had 600,538 and Hamburg 585,772 registrations.
But when it comes to domain names registered per capita. Throughout Germany there are 183 domain names registered per 1,000 residents, but in Osnabruck, the city with the most domains per person, there are 1,498 .de domains per 1,000 inhabitants, which was down from 1,516 12 months earlier. Coming in second again was Munich (410) and then Bonn (408). For administrative districts, Freising (443) in Bavaria is the frontrunner again while Stormarn (433) near Hamburg has moved into second and the district of Starnberg (404) moves to third. DENIC note that higher individual statistical values reflect local domain investors with larger-scale domain portfolios.
There remains a stark difference in registrations per capita between the old East and West Germanys. The state of Hamburg – comprising the city of Hamburg and its wider outskirts – remains number one with 323 domains per 1,000 inhabitants, remaining far ahead of Berlin (287) and the state of Bavaria with its vast lands (206). As in the preceding year, the state of Saxony-Anhalt (84) brings up the rear behind Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia with 107 and 108 domains per 1,000 inhabitants respectively. The national growth rate (+1.05%) was above that of 2016 (+0.49%). For the first time ever, the average growth rate was exceeded by all federal states of the eastern part of Germany in 2017. Looking at German as a whole, 9 federal states scored values level to or above the mean value, with Schleswig-Holstein (+11.3%) and Brandenburg (+2.4%) in the lead. Negative growth was found only in West Germany in 2017, i.e. in Hamburg (-1.5%), Bremen (-0.8%) and Saarland (-0.8%). Excluding Berlin (+0.3%), the average percentage domain growth among the states in the East of Germany (+1.6%) clearly exceeded that of those in the West (+1.1%).
Statistically, every fifth German resident has registered a .de domain name, which places Germany fourth in the world per capita after the Netherlands, Switzerland and Denmark for registrations of ccTLD domain names within the country.
Throughout Germany there were .de 16,314,502 registrations as of 31 December 2017, up from 16,114,504 12 months earlier. Of these at the end of 2017 were 15.1 million registered inside Germany and the remaining 1.2 million, or 7.3%, registered abroad. Registrations of .de domain names to registrants living outside Germany increased by around 200,00 in 2017, compared to 105,000 in 2016, or an increase of 1.2% compared to 0.7%.
Registrants of .de domains came from 217 countries. As in the past, German domains are particularly popular in the United States (28%), the Netherlands (10%) and in the Russian Federation (7%). But Germany's European neighbours Switzerland, Austria and Great Britain as well as the United Arab Emirates also account for 6 percent respectively of the .de domains with non-German-based registrants.
