Map of The Internet

For a detailed look at a map of the internet, click the link below which will take you to an interactive program where you can view the network routings of many of the major carriers.

The project is called MapNet and was done by the people at CAIDA.

Internet Map

If you are unfamiliar with the terms 'Network', 'Server', and 'Client', or how the internet transfers information from one place to another then this overview is for you. It will provide you not only with the definitions for those terms, but an overview of how they work together.

Network - refers to two or more computers connected together by wires or some other data path enabling them to communicate. Your telephone or cable carrier has provided you with your connection to the internet network.

Server - a computer dedicated to the task of storing information and delivering it to other computers on the network. Internet servers are specialized computer systems running programs specifically designed to deliver information to people on the internet. Accessing these servers is almost always free since the server managers usually charge a fee for holding and delivering information across the web. Servers are almost always located at or near major carrier connections and have much higher capacity connections in order to serve the many clients simultaneously requesting information from the many web sites hosted by the server.

Client - is a computer requesting information from a server. Virtually any type of computer can be an internet client including hand held computers, portables, Macs, PCs, even mini-computers or mainframes. The only requirements are that the computer be connected to the internet and be running a program called a 'browser' which is the program you are now using to view this page.

Put simply, web sites are located on servers and computers browsing the internet are clients. While it is possible that the same computer can be both a browser and a server at the same time it is impractical on anything but the smallest of networks. A typical server would be a computer running IIS (Microsoft's Web Server) or Apache (Linux's Web Server). Typical browsers are Internet Explorer (Microsoft) or Navigator (Netscape).

The illustration below shows a greatly simplified version of the internet network. It shows computers (servers) and terminals (clients) connected together in a network. Just as with any other network, the internet's only purpose is to transfer information between clients and servers.

The green ball in the center of the illustration represents the world with the dots representing major communications centres usually located in major cities at telephone or other communication centres. In network terms these points are called nodes. The dashed circles around the nodes represent the areas for which that centre supplies network connections.

The lines interconnecting the nodes are direct links. These could be telephone lines, fibre-optic cables, wireless radio,or even satellite links. Although shown here as a single line, these could be hundreds or even thousands of separate links using a combination of any of the above methods. Each node is connected to one or (usually) more surrounding nodes by separate links.

It can be seen from the diagram that several routes can be taken between any two nodes. This ensures that the internet continues to operate even if one or more of the links fail.

In practice, large messages are split into smaller pieces called packets, and the individual packets are sent to the destination by different paths or multiple lines along the same path. Once at the destination, the packets are reassembled back into the full message and delivered giving the impression of a higher speed connection over a single path.

From the nodes, the blue lines represent links to computers in the area for which the node provides internet access. The internet connection to your home or office would be represented by one of these blue lines. Should a blue line fail, internet service will not be available to or from that particular location but the internet will continue to operate.