This amazing Infographic maps the world’s Internet users. This is really import data for anyone who travels, does business or well lives on planet earth.
The map from the Oxford Internet Institute illustrates the total number of Internet users in a country as well as the percentage of the population in each country which has Internet access. The distortion in the map paints a revealing picture about human activity on the Internet. China is now home to the world’s largest Internet population at over half a billion. The United States, India, and Japan then follow as the next most populous nations of Internet users.
Just chew on this one stat, 42% of the world’s Internet users live in Asia, and China, India, and Japan alone host more Internet users than Europe and North America combined. And Internet penetration rates are growing fast in Asia. The online world is changing much like the real one.
Looking at the largest Internet countries, we see two important trends.
First, the rise of Asia as the main contributor to the world’s Internet population; 42% of the world’s Internet users live in Asia, and China, India, and Japan alone host more Internet users than Europe and North America combined.
Second, few of the world’s largest Internet countries fall into the top category (>80%) of Internet penetration (and indeed India falls into the lowest category, at <20% penetration). In other words, in all of the world’s largest Internet nations, there is still substantial room for growth.
We also see an interesting geographic pattern of Internet penetration. All but four of the countries with an Internet penetration rate of over 80% are in Europe (Canada, New Zealand, Qatar, and South Korea being the exceptions).
The map also reveals interesting patterns in some of the world’s poorest countries. Most Latin American countries now can count over 40% of their citizens as Internet users. Because of this, Latin America as a whole now hosts almost as many Internet users as the United States.
Some African countries have seen staggering growth, whereas other have seen little change since we last mapped Internet use globally in 2008. In the last three years, almost all North African countries doubled their population of Internet users (Algeria being a notable exception). Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, also saw massive growth. However, it remains that over half of Sub-Saharan African countries have an Internet penetration of less than 10%, and have seen very little grow in recent years.
It is therefore important to remember that despite the massive impacts that the Internet has on everyday life for many people, most people on our planet remain entirely disconnected. Only one third of the world’s population has access to the Internet.
