Determining location of Internet users in real-time

The IP addresses of the internet are allocated by four Regional Internet Registries (RIRs).

• RIPE "Réseaux IP Européens" handles Europeans IP Networks.
• APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) represents the Asia Pacific region, comprising 62 economies.
• ARIN or the American Registry for Internet Numbers manages the Internet numbering resources for North America, a portion of the Caribbean, and sub-equatorial Africa..
• LACNIC is the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry.

Each of these entities manage their IP allocation database and they are publicly available on their web site in text format.

Webhosting.info also provides a IP-to-Country database that can be used to determine the location of Internet users in real-time with about 98% accuracy


Country recognition can be useful for the following purposes:

• Providing Location Aware Content (language, currency, etc.)
• Corporate Websites/E-commerce (think global, act local)
• Fraud Detection (Credit Card Fraud, etc.)
• On-line Campaigns (targeted Banner Ads)
• Digital Rights Management
• Web Server Log Analysis
• Auto-selection of fields on forms (country, currency,language, etc.)
• Filter access on basis of originating country
• Spam Filtering