The Internet has been such a staple of life in the United States for so many years that we may now take it for granted. However, a new map showing the density of Internet-connected devices posted on Re/code’s Twitter account shows that we still have a very long way to go when it comes to making the worldwide web truly worldwide.
Unsurprisingly, the United States, Europe and Japan seem to have the highest density of devices connected to the web while emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil are all showing significant density in select regions. Incidentally, those three markets have been the key growth drivers for the low-end smartphone industry for the past few years so we shouldn’t be surprised to see that they’re rapidly gaining when it comes to Internet connectivity.
There’s still a long ways to go, however. Vast swathes of Africa, the Middle East and South America aren’t showing up on the radar. Some of this is because these areas are sparsely populated — we’ll never expect to see a high density of connected devices in Siberia, for example — but we also know that billions of people around the world still lack access to the web.
Our favorite little tidbit on the map, though, has to be the tiny orange dot in the center of Greenland, which makes it look like there’s one lonely high-density connectivity hub in the middle of an otherwise Internet-less wasteland.
