IP Geolocation Lookup

What is IP geolocation and how does it work?

IP geolocation is the process of mapping an IP address to a physical location — typically a country, region, city, postal code, and approximate latitude/longitude. It works by cross-referencing the IP address against large databases that record how internet registries (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC, and AFRINIC) have allocated IP blocks to organisations, combined with BGP routing data, active probing, and ISP-reported records. The result is an estimate — not a GPS fix — but accurate to the city level for most residential and business connections. For mobile or shared connections, accuracy may only reach region or country level.

Geolocation differs from What Is My IP, which focuses purely on identifying your own current IP. Geolocation lets you query any IP or hostname and retrieve its full geographic and network profile.

What is the difference between IP geolocation and IP geolocation accuracy?

The data you see here is sourced from ip-api.com's real-time database, which cross-references multiple public and commercial sources. Country-level accuracy is very high — typically above 99% for IPv4. City-level accuracy is lower, usually 60–85% depending on region, ISP, and connection type. Accuracy is highest for fixed residential broadband (where ISPs register IP blocks close to their customers) and lowest for mobile networks, satellite connections, and corporate VPN or MPLS networks where the registered address of the network block may be thousands of kilometres from the actual user. The latitude and longitude shown represent the centre of the estimated location — not a house or street address.

What fields does a geolocation lookup return?

A full IP geolocation response returns the following data:

• Country & country code — the registered country of the IP block.
• Region / state — the first-level administrative division (e.g. a province or state).
• City & district — the city and sub-city district where the IP is registered.
• Postal code — the ZIP or postcode for the estimated location.
• Latitude & longitude — approximate geographic coordinates, shown on the map above.
• Timezone & UTC offset — the timezone the IP falls within, useful for localisation.
• ISP & organisation — the company providing the internet connection and the registered network owner.
• AS number & name — the Autonomous System that controls this IP block. Use our ASN Lookup to explore the full ASN in detail.
• Hostname — the reverse DNS record associated with the IP. Dig deeper with our Reverse DNS tool.
• Mobile, Proxy/VPN, Hosting/DC flags — whether the IP appears to be a mobile network, anonymisation service, or data centre host.
• Currency — the primary currency of the detected country, useful for e-commerce applications.

How do I look up the location of a domain name?

Enter the domain name (e.g. example.com) in the search box above. The tool automatically resolves it to an IP address via DNS and then runs the geolocation lookup against that IP. This shows you where the server hosting that domain is physically located — which may differ significantly from where the domain owner is based. For a full breakdown of a domain's DNS records including A, MX, CNAME, NS, and TXT entries, use our DNS Lookup tool. To check who owns the domain and when it was registered, try our WHOIS Lookup.

What does the Proxy / VPN flag mean in IP geolocation?

The Proxy / VPN flag indicates that the queried IP address is associated with a known VPN service, commercial proxy, Tor exit node, or other anonymisation network. This is detected by comparing the IP against curated lists of known VPN provider infrastructure, datacenter ranges commonly used by proxy services, and actively maintained threat intelligence feeds. Websites and applications use this flag to distinguish human users from anonymised or automated traffic, enforce geographic content restrictions, or apply additional authentication steps. Note that a false positive is possible — some ISPs route residential traffic through infrastructure that resembles a proxy network. Use our HTTP Headers tool to inspect what headers your own connection sends to web servers.

How is IP geolocation used in real-world applications?

IP geolocation is one of the most widely applied technologies on the internet. Common uses include:

• Content localisation — showing prices in local currency, auto-selecting language, or surfacing region-specific news and media.
• Fraud detection — flagging logins or transactions from unexpected countries as part of a broader risk score.
• Compliance and geo-blocking — restricting access to services based on regulatory requirements (e.g. GDPR regions, export controls, streaming rights).
• Network diagnostics — verifying where a server is physically hosted, especially when CDN or anycast routing is involved. Combine with our Ping Test to check latency to any host.
• Security research — tracing the origin of suspicious traffic, spam, or attacks back to an ISP or region for reporting and blocking.
• Ad targeting — inferring a user's region for localised ad delivery, subject to privacy regulations.

Can IP geolocation identify a specific person or address?

No. IP geolocation identifies the network block an IP belongs to and estimates the geographic area that block serves — it does not identify individuals, street addresses, households, or personal identities. To obtain specific subscriber information for an IP address, a law enforcement agency would need a formal legal request (court order or subpoena) to the ISP that owns that IP block. The ISP holds the subscriber-to-IP assignment logs; this public geolocation database does not. The coordinates shown on the map should be treated as the approximate centre of a coverage area, not the physical location of a device or person.

What is an ASN and why does it appear in geolocation results?

An ASN (Autonomous System Number) uniquely identifies the organisation responsible for routing a block of IP addresses on the global internet. Every IP address is part of exactly one Autonomous System — typically an ISP, cloud provider, university, or large corporation. The ASN and AS name in the geolocation results tell you which organisation controls the network infrastructure this IP routes through. For a complete picture of an ASN — including all its IP prefixes, country of registration, and peering relationships — use our dedicated ASN Lookup tool.

How do I verify if an IP's SSL certificate is valid?

After locating an IP's hostname via this geolocation tool or our Reverse DNS lookup, you can paste that hostname into our SSL Certificate Checker to verify whether the server is running a valid, trusted HTTPS certificate, check its expiry date, inspect the certificate chain, and confirm it matches the correct domain. This is particularly useful when investigating hosting providers or verifying the security configuration of a server whose location you have just looked up.

Why does an IP's geolocation show a different city than expected?

Several factors cause geolocation to show a city different from the physical location of the device using that IP. ISPs often register large IP blocks against their headquarters or a major regional hub rather than individual exchange points. Mobile carriers aggregate connections through a small number of gateways, which may be hundreds of kilometres from the handset. Corporate networks route all traffic through a central office regardless of where employees are located. VPNs and proxies deliberately place the registered IP in a different city or country. Satellite internet assigns IP blocks to ground station locations. These are normal characteristics of how IP allocation works — not errors in the geolocation database. For precise location, GPS or user-provided data is required.

What is the difference between a MAC address and an IP address?

A MAC (Media Access Control) address is a hardware identifier burned into a network adapter at the factory — it is unique to a specific physical device and operates at layer 2 of the network stack, meaning it is only used within a local network segment. An IP address operates at layer 3 and is what identifies a device or connection across the internet. MAC addresses are never transmitted beyond your local router and cannot be detected by websites or remote servers. You can use our MAC Address Lookup tool to identify the hardware manufacturer from the first six characters (OUI) of any MAC address.

How does subnetting relate to IP geolocation?

IP addresses are allocated in blocks called subnets — ranges of consecutive addresses under common ownership. Geolocation databases map these subnet blocks to geographic regions based on their registration records. Understanding subnets is essential for network engineers configuring firewalls, routing rules, or access control lists. Use our Subnet Calculator to compute network ranges, broadcast addresses, usable host counts, and CIDR notation for any IPv4 or IPv6 subnet.