Domain Distribution by Continent: 520 Million ccTLD Domains and the Map of Digital Inequality

If you plotted every country-code domain in the world on a map, you would see a planet that looks nothing like a population chart. Europe would glow white-hot — 280 million ccTLD entries from 17.6 million Dutch residents, 84 million Germans, 67 million Britons. Asia would be surprisingly dim — 42 million entries from 125 million Japanese, 22 million from 1.4 billion Chinese. Africa would be nearly invisible — 16 million entries from 1.4 billion people, most of them concentrated in a single country at the continent's southern tip.

The conventional framing of "digital divide" focuses on internet access — how many people are online. But access is not presence. China has 1.09 billion internet users and 22 million ccTLD entries. Germany has 78 million internet users and 70 million. The ratio between being online and having a national domain namespace ranges from near-parity in Europe to a 50:1 gap in China. Internet access tells you who can consume. Domain registration tells you who can publish.

We counted every entry in every country-code TLD directory in the DomainsProject dataset — 520 million ccTLD entries across 245 ccTLDs — and mapped them to their geographic continents using UN geoscheme classification.

The headline: Europe holds 54% of all ccTLD domains with 280 million entries from a population of 450 million (in the countries we measured). Africa holds 3.1% with 16 million entries from a population of 1.4 billion. The Netherlands alone — 17.6 million people — has more ccTLD domains than the entire African continent. Japan has more than all of South America. And Germany, with 70 million ccTLD entries, holds more domains than China, India, and Indonesia combined. This is not a gap in internet access. It is a gap in internet ownership.

The Data

DomainsProject continuously crawls and indexes domains across every delegated TLD in the IANA root zone. For this analysis, we counted all entries in every country-code TLD directory in our dataset and grouped them by geographic continent. This covers ccTLD entries only — domains under generic TLDs (.com, .net, .org, .xyz, etc.) are stored separately and are not attributed to specific countries.

These counts include subdomains and ISP reverse-DNS entries, which is why some ccTLDs appear larger than their registry counts. The Netherlands (.nl) shows 27.8 million entries against 6.06 million SIDN registrations — the difference is ISP infrastructure from Ziggo, Chello, and XS4ALL. This measurement methodology is consistent across all countries: we count everything that resolves under a ccTLD, not just registered second-level domains. The comparisons are apples-to-apples.

The Scorecard: Five Continents, One Story

ccTLD Entries by Continent

Europe holds more ccTLD domains than every other continent combined. With 280 million entries against Asia's 112 million and Africa's 16 million, the European dominance is not a marginal lead — it is a structural asymmetry. Europe has 10% of global population and 54% of ccTLD domains. Africa has 18% of global population and 3.1% of ccTLD domains. The per-capita gap is 32x.

Oceania's per-capita rate of 518 entries per 1,000 people is the highest of any continent — driven almost entirely by Australia's 20 million entries across 26 million people. But Oceania's total volume (23 million) is smaller than the Netherlands alone (27.8 million). Small population, high registration culture.

Concentration Within Continents

Every continent except Europe is dominated by one or two countries. In Africa, South Africa holds 71% of all ccTLD entries — 11.5 million out of 16.2 million. Remove South Africa and the entire African continent has 4.7 million ccTLD domains — fewer than Switzerland. In the Americas, Brazil and Colombia together hold 60%. In Asia, Japan and China hold 58%. Only Europe distributes its domain namespace across a dozen countries with meaningful volume.

Europe: The Domain Supercontinent

Europe's 280 million ccTLD entries come from a deep bench. Eighteen European countries have more than 1 million ccTLD entries each. No other continent has more than seven.

European ccTLD Entries (Top 20)

The Netherlands has the most extreme domain density on Earth: 1 ccTLD entry for every 0.6 people. Adjusted for ISP reverse-DNS inflation (Ziggo, Chello, and XS4ALL account for 28.6% of .nl entries), the registrable density is still approximately 1 per 3 people — the highest on the planet. Switzerland matches this raw density at 1 per 0.6, driven by its status as a banking and corporate hub with .ch used by multinational entities.

Turkey presents the European anomaly. With 85 million people — Europe's second-largest population after Russia — Turkey has only 4.3 million ccTLD entries, a density of 1 per 19.9. This is closer to Asian densities than European ones, and reflects the relatively late commercialization of the .tr namespace and higher barriers to registration compared to Western European ccTLDs.

France underperforms its population. At 20.4 million entries for 68 million people (1 per 3.3), France registers at half the rate of comparably-sized Germany (1 per 1.2). The gap reflects .fr's historically restrictive registration policies — until 2006, .fr registration required a French trademark or business registration — and the late opening of the namespace to general registration.

Asia: 4.8 Billion People, 112 Million Domains

Asia's 112 million ccTLD entries represent 21.5% of all ccTLD domains — from a continent that holds 60% of the world's population.

Asian ccTLD Entries

Japan is Asia's domain powerhouse — and it is the only Asian country that registers at European density. At 42.4 million entries and 1 per 3.0 people, Japan matches Italy and exceeds France. This reflects Japan's early internet adoption (JUNET, 1984), strong domestic web culture, and a .jp namespace that has been commercially active since the 1990s. Japan went online during the website era, just like Western Europe.

China and India, with a combined 2.84 billion people, have 41.6 million ccTLD entries between them — fewer than Germany alone. The reasons differ. China's low density is regulatory (ICP licensing, real-name verification) and structural (WeChat Mini Programs replacing the open web). India's is economic — .in registration is affordable at $10/year, but India's GDP per capita ($2,600) makes domain registration a low priority for the hundreds of millions who access the internet exclusively through smartphones and social media apps.

Pakistan's density of 1 per 167 people is the lowest of any major Asian country in our dataset. With 230 million people and 1.4 million ccTLD entries, Pakistan's .pk namespace is barely larger than Singapore's .sg — a city-state of 5.9 million. The combination of low GDP per capita ($1,500), limited broadband infrastructure, and a mobile-first internet population that bypasses the domain-based web almost entirely explains the gap.

The Americas: Brazil's Quiet Dominance

The Americas hold 89 million ccTLD entries — 17.1% of the global total — but the distribution is sharply concentrated.

Americas ccTLD Entries

Colombia's .co is the Americas' most interesting data point. At 19.8 million entries for 52 million people (1 per 2.6), Colombia registers at a higher per-capita density than Canada. But the number is misleading — .co has been aggressively marketed globally as a short alternative to .com since 2010. A significant fraction of .co registrations are not Colombian entities at all but international companies and startups that use .co as a generic abbreviation for "company." Twitter was once t.co. Google uses g.co. The namespace tells us more about global marketing than Colombian internet adoption.

The United States' .us is a paradox: the world's largest internet economy has one of its smallest ccTLDs. At 13 million entries for 335 million people, .us density (1 per 25.6) is lower than Brazil, Colombia, Canada, Argentina, and Chile. The reason is .com. American businesses defaulted to .com from the beginning — the TLD was created for American commercial entities in 1985 — and .us was never adopted as a national domain. With 1.02 billion .com domains in our dataset, the US does not need .us. It already owns the world's default namespace.

Mexico's low density (1 per 22.9) stands out against its neighbors. With 130 million people and a $1.3 trillion GDP, Mexico has fewer ccTLD entries than Chile, a country with 15% of its population. The .mx namespace opened to general registration only in 2009 — decades after .br, .ar, and .cl were commercially established — and Mexican businesses defaulted to .com.mx under a hierarchical structure that added friction without adding value.

Africa: The 3.1% Continent

Africa's 16 million ccTLD entries represent the starkest digital divide in the dataset.

African ccTLD Entries

South Africa alone holds 71.3% of all African ccTLD entries. Remove South Africa and the remaining 1.34 billion Africans across 53 countries share 4.6 million ccTLD domains — fewer than Denmark (7.3 million entries, 5.9 million people). This concentration is not just about South Africa being wealthy by African standards. It reflects the early development of .za (delegated 1990), robust broadband infrastructure by regional standards, and a commercial web culture that developed alongside Europe's.

Egypt's density is catastrophic: 1 ccTLD entry per 1,325 people. Africa's third-largest economy (by GDP) and its most populous Arab country has fewer ccTLD entries (79,234) than the Faroe Islands (40,218 entries, 53,000 people). Egyptian internet users overwhelmingly access the web through .com domains and social media platforms — .eg registration requires documentation and is managed through a bureaucratic process that discourages adoption.

Nigeria, with 220 million people and Africa's largest economy, has fewer ccTLD entries than Estonia (1.9 million entries, 1.3 million people). The .ng namespace charges $30-40/year for registration — affordable by Western standards but significant in a country where GDP per capita is $2,200. More fundamentally, Nigerian internet usage is mobile-first and platform-centric: WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram are the internet for most Nigerian users, and none of them require a domain name.

Oceania: High Density, Low Volume

Oceania ccTLD Entries

Australia and New Zealand register at rates that match or exceed most European countries. Australia's 1 per 1.3 density rivals Belgium and the Czech Republic. New Zealand's 1 per 1.5 exceeds Portugal and Sweden. Both countries went online early, have high broadband penetration, strong English-language web cultures, and mature ccTLD registries. Oceania is a miniature Europe in domain behavior — high density, low total volume.

The Three Internets: A Structural Analysis

The data reveals not a single digital divide but three distinct internet models, each with different relationships between population, internet access, and domain registration:

Internet Model Comparison

The Open Web model produces high domain density. Users in Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan went online in the 1990s when the web browser was the primary interface and registering a domain was synonymous with having an internet presence. Their ccTLD namespaces grew alongside their internet populations. These countries now have near-parity between internet users and domain entries.

The Platform-First model produces low domain density despite massive internet adoption. China's 1.09 billion internet users generate 22 million ccTLD entries because WeChat Mini Programs, Taobao storefronts, and Douyin shops have replaced the open web. The platform economy means internet participation does not require domain ownership.

The Mobile-Social model produces the lowest domain density. In Nigeria, Kenya, and much of the developing world, internet access arrived via smartphones and was immediately captured by social platforms. Users went from no internet to WhatsApp without ever passing through the "register a domain and build a website" phase that defined European internet adoption. The domain-based web was skipped entirely.

What's at Stake

The geographic distribution of ccTLD domains reveals structural inequalities that internet access statistics alone cannot capture:

• Europe holds 54% of all ccTLD domains with 10% of global population — a 5.4x overrepresentation that reflects four decades of open-web culture, cheap domain registration, and registries designed for mass adoption. Africa holds 3.1% with 18% of population — a 5.8x underrepresentation.

• The Netherlands (17.6 million people) has more ccTLD entries than the entire African continent (1.4 billion people). Germany alone has more entries than China, India, and Indonesia combined. These are not marginal differences. They are order-of-magnitude gaps.

• South Africa holds 71% of all African ccTLD entries. Remove it and the continent's remaining 53 countries have fewer domains than Denmark. African internet adoption is real — Nigeria has 110 million internet users — but it bypasses the domain-based web almost entirely.

• Japan is Asia's only European-density registrar, at 1 per 3.0 people. Every other Asian country with more than 50 million people registers at 1 per 15 or worse. The timing of internet adoption — Japan went online in the 1980s, China and India in the 2000s — determined whether domain registration became a mass behavior or a niche one.

• The US has the world's 4th-largest internet economy but only its 4th-largest Americas ccTLD — behind Brazil, Colombia, and Canada. .com obviated the need for .us, making America the only major economy whose digital identity is not tied to its country-code TLD.

What Would Help

1. African registries: reduce registration costs and simplify verification. Nigeria's .ng at $30-40/year is prohibitively expensive relative to local purchasing power. Kenya's .ke at $15-20/year is better but still a barrier. DENIC provides .de domains for EUR 2.20/year to registrars, and Germany has 70 million entries. Price is not the only factor, but it is the most directly actionable one.

2. Researchers: use ccTLD density as a proxy for internet publishing capacity. Access metrics (internet users, smartphone penetration) measure consumption. Domain density measures production — the capacity to publish, host, and build on the open web. The two tell very different stories. Download the full dataset to map both.

3. Development organizations: recognize the platform trap. Mobile-social internet adoption in developing countries means citizens can consume content but cannot easily produce or host it. When the internet is WhatsApp, the infrastructure is owned by Meta, the data flows to California, and the local economy captures none of the value. Domain-based web presence — however old-fashioned it sounds — represents digital sovereignty. Compare countries on our country statistics page.

4. ICANN: publish ccTLD registration data broken out by registrant geography. The .co anomaly — millions of non-Colombian registrations inflating Colombia's numbers — is not unique. .io, .ai, .tv, and dozens of other ccTLDs are used commercially by non-residents. Without geographic attribution, ccTLD data overstates domestic adoption for commercially exploited namespaces and understates it for everyone else.

5. Anyone making claims about "global internet access": specify access to what. 5.4 billion people are online. But "online" means fundamentally different things in Germany (70 million ccTLD entries, anyone can publish) and Nigeria (110 million internet users, 2 million ccTLD entries, almost nobody publishes). The internet is not one thing. The data shows at least three distinct models, with very different implications for who controls the digital infrastructure.

This analysis is based on the DomainsProject dataset (520 million ccTLD entries counted across 245 country-code TLD directories). Domain counts reflect what resolves on the public internet and include subdomains and ISP reverse-DNS entries; this methodology is consistent across all countries. Generic TLD domains (.com, .net, .org, .xyz, etc.) are not attributed to specific countries and are excluded from this analysis. Population data uses UN estimates (2025). Per-capita calculations divide population by entry count and should be interpreted as relative comparisons, not as precise domain density measures. Explore the full data on our country statistics page and TLD statistics, or download the complete dataset.