How to use it
- 1Enter an IP address – IPv4 such as
8.8.8.8or IPv6 such as2001:4860:4860::8888– or a hostname such aswikipedia.org. You can also paste a web address. - 2Click Look up, or click “Use my IP” to check the address you’re connecting from.
- 3Read the approximate city, region and country, the provider or organisation that runs the network, its AS number, the IP range and the hostname from reverse DNS.
- 4If a hostname points to several addresses, pick one from the list to see its details. Follow “WHOIS for this IP” for the official registration record.
How IP geolocation works
Regional internet registries hand out IP addresses in blocks to internet providers, hosting companies and large organisations. Geolocation databases track where each block is used, combining registry records, network routing data and information from providers, and the tool finds the block an address belongs to.
The provider comes from the address’s autonomous system (AS): every independent network on the internet – a broadband or mobile provider, a cloud platform, a university – has an AS number and announces its IP ranges to the rest of the internet under it. The AS name tells you who operates the network. A home or mobile provider suggests a regular user, while a hosting or cloud company often means a server, a VPN or a proxy.
The hostname comes from reverse DNS: the PTR record that the owner of the address can set. It often names the provider, the type of connection or the server’s purpose, such as dns.google for 8.8.8.8.
Why the location can be wrong
The location belongs to the network, not the person. Providers often register or route their addresses through a regional hub, so the database may show a city tens or hundreds of kilometres away. Mobile networks are the least precise, because their traffic leaves through a few central gateways. Blocks are also reassigned and moved, and databases catch up with a delay.
VPNs, proxies, Tor and iCloud Private Relay replace the user’s address with one of their own, so a lookup shows the service’s location instead. The coordinates are the centre of the city, region or country the database matched – never a precise point on a map.
IPv4, IPv6 and privacy
The tool looks up both IPv4 addresses such as 203.0.113.42 and IPv6 addresses such as 2001:db8::1. A hostname can have both kinds, and big websites often have several addresses of each – all of them are listed, and you can check each one. Location data for IPv6 is less complete than for IPv4, because the address space is enormous and changes more often.
An IP address shows the approximate area and the provider of a connection, not who is using it. Only the provider can link an address to a customer, and it normally discloses that only when the police or a court require it. Private addresses such as 192.168.1.10 exist only inside local networks, so they have no location at all.
Questions and answers
Can I find someone’s exact location from their IP address?
No. An IP lookup shows the approximate city or region and the provider, which is often not even the right city. The exact address of a subscriber is known only to their internet provider, which discloses it only when a court or the police require it.
How do I find the IP address of a website?
Enter its domain name, such as wikipedia.org. The tool resolves the name and lists every IPv4 and IPv6 address it points to. Large sites use content delivery networks, so the address – and its location – often belongs to a nearby CDN server rather than the company’s headquarters.
What is an ASN?
An autonomous system number identifies a network that routes its own traffic on the internet, such as AS15169 for Google or AS13335 for Cloudflare. It tells you which company operates the network an address belongs to – a home provider, a mobile operator or a hosting company.
Why does an address like 192.168.1.1 show no location?
It’s a private address. Private ranges (10.x.x.x, 172.16.x.x–172.31.x.x and 192.168.x.x) are reused in millions of home and office networks and never appear on the internet, so no database can place them. The tool explains which special range an address belongs to instead.
Why do I get a different result on another IP lookup site?
Each site uses its own geolocation database, and the databases disagree most about the city. The provider and AS number are usually the same everywhere, because they come from routing data rather than estimates.