Geolocation Coverage

GeoIP2 geolocation databases and web services cover nearly all public IPs in use worldwide, even those in Antarctica. This includes IPv4 as well as IPv6 addresses.

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Coverage of IP Addresses

The number of IP addresses in our databases varies depending on fluctuations in IP usage and our own data, however users should expect that our databases have the potential to cover any and all public IPv4 and IPv6 addresses in use.

There are around 3.4 ⋅ 1038 (or 340 trillion trillion trillion) unique IPv6 addresses, and in GeoIP2 products and services these IP addresses are broken down into network ranges of varying size.

Changes in IP usage and our data sources require us to update our databases frequently in order to provide the most accurate data available to our customers and users. As our data is updated, we also change the way we divide IPs into network ranges, in order to make searching the databases as efficient as possible. These two factors: changes to the data, and changes in how we chunk the data, means that GeoIP2 databases may have significant variations in the number of entries from update to update.

IPs not Included in GeoIP2

We can not return data for IPs which are inactive, reserved, private, or anycast. As an example, IP address 127.0.0.1 is used by each computer to refer to itself, so no geolocation data is available or applicable.

In addition to these special IPs, there are rare or unusual cases where an IP is otherwise not identifiable on a country-level. For example, if the IP address has end-users spread across multiple countries. In the event that our databases or web services do not return at least country-level data, that nearly always indicates that the owner of the IP has submitted a valid Do Not Sell My Personal Information request, or that the IP is used by an anonymizing proxy. Learn more about anonymous IP detection offered by GeoIP2 products and services.

Coverage of Geographic Locations

There are no regions of the world that are excluded from MaxMind's IP geolocation data, although coverage and accuracy varies by region.

It is also not unusual for smaller geographic regions (smaller towns or villages, for example) to be geolocated to a larger metropolitan area nearby. This is because the geolocation areas in GeoIP2 databases and web services have a minimum accuracy radius of 5 km, and many IPs have a higher accuracy radius. When the accuracy radius encompasses several geographic regions (cities, towns, etc.), GeoIP2 will often return the largest metropolitan area for the city, even though the IP may be in a smaller neighboring community.

Learn more about geolocation accuracy.

Correcting GeoIP2 Data

Our data team works hard to keep our coverage up. We are always glad to review IPs to ensure our data coverage is as complete as and accurate as we can make it. Please reach out to our support team if you have questions about coverage. You can also learn about and submit a data correction request on our main website.

 

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