Germany's .de domain name turns 40 – Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News

The popular ccTLD now has over 18 million registered domains.

One of the internet’s most popular country code domain names turns 40 today.

On this date in 1986, .de was entered into the IANA database.

Two years later, there were only six .de domains when the University of Dortmund took over administration. At the time, domains were managed using a manually maintained list. But as demand grew, they needed a better solution.

In 1993, the IV-DENIC interest group formed and put the nameserver operations out to bid. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology won the contract and started managing about 1,000 .de domains in early 1994.

By mid-1996, there were 20,000 .de domains. Thirty years ago, in December 1996, 37 internet service providers founded DENIC eG as a cooperative registry.

Earlier this year, .de hit 18 million domains under management. Growth was strong as the web took off in the early 2000s, but, like most ccTLDs, it has slowed as the domain and internet mature. It hit 17 million domains in 2021, so it took another five years to add a million domains.

In the U.S., it’s a .com world. But in many other countries, including Germany, you’re more likely to see a .de domain on a sign or storefront than a .com.