The Map of the Internet

The Internet Infrastructure Map is an interactive visualization of the physical infrastructure of the global internet, built using data from TeleGeography and PeeringDB. It illustrates the growth of the internet over time, from the early days of subsea cable networks right up to the modern day.

The map highlights two core components of the physical internet: undersea cables (represented by lines) and Internet Exchange Points (shown as circles over cities). It's important to note that the map does not show the vast terrestrial fiber networks that deliver the internet to your home (those local cables running under streets and along highways). However, the size of each Internet Exchange Point on the map is scaled relative to its total peering bandwidth, so the map does show the major hubs of connectivity around the world.

A standout feature of the map is its timeline, which allows users to observe the growth of global internet infrastructure over the past 36 years. The animation begins in 1989 with the construction of the Rønne–Rødvig cable in Denmark. Of course, this wasn’t the start of the internet itself - it’s simply the earliest submarine cable included in the dataset used for the project. 1989 was likely chosen as a starting point because it coincides with Tim Berners-Lee’s proposal for the World Wide Web and marks the era when fiber optic technology began to see widespread deployment (including in undersea cables).