.DE domain counts almost 15 and half million registered domain names. Thus the German top-level domain outruns almost all the existing domains including .NET domain, and is now one of the biggest domains in the world.
In November, 2012 there were 14 mln names registered in .DE domain, and in April 2012 there already were 15 mln domain names.
According to the German domain DENIC registry, there are 15.433.665 domain names in .DE domain. It’s possible that the growing population of the domain also happens because of the support of several German alphabet letters, e.g. since November, 2010 one can use German letter “scharfes S” (ß) in domain names.
