IP Location Lookup
Enter an IP address to get geolocation data — city, ISP, timezone and coordinates.
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IP geolocation relies on WHOIS databases, BGP routing data, and commercial databases like MaxMind. ISPs register IP ranges with Regional Internet Registries (ARIN, RIPE, APNIC, LACNIC, AFRINIC). Geolocation providers cross-reference routing tables, registration data, and user-reported corrections to map IP ranges to geographic regions.
IP geolocation is typically accurate to country level (95%+), region level (80%), and city level (50–80%). Error margins of 25–50 km are common. Mobile networks often geolocate to the carrier headquarters, not your actual location. Corporate VPNs show the corporate office IP.
IP geolocation powers fraud detection, content localization, and regulatory compliance. Security teams use it during incident response to trace attack origins. CDN providers route requests to the nearest edge server. E-commerce platforms display local currency and delivery options automatically.
When using a VPN, the geolocation shows the VPN server location, not yours. Tor exit nodes show the exit node's location. Some platforms block or challenge logins when the geolocation differs significantly from the registered account location.
IPv6 geolocation databases are less mature than IPv4, leading to lower accuracy. Many IPv6 blocks are allocated in large chunks to ISPs without granular location data. As IPv6 adoption grows, providers are improving coverage. Expect higher uncertainty for IPv6 lookups, especially for mobile carriers.
Why is the location wrong?
Geolocation is approximate and based on ISP registration, not GPS. Mobile and VPN IPs are especially inaccurate.
Can I look up my own IP?
Yes — use the What Is My IP tool to find your IP, then paste it here for full geolocation details.
Is geolocation legal?
Querying public IP registration data is legal. Processing it as personal data may require GDPR compliance.
Expert guide · IP Location Lookup
What it does
IP Location takes a single IPv4 or IPv6 address and returns the location and network data a commercial geolocation database associates with it: country, region, city, postal code, latitude/longitude, time zone, ISP, organization and the originating AS. It is a database lookup, not a measurement of where a device physically is, so the result describes where the address block is registered or routed.
Why it matters
- Fraud screening: A card billing address in Lisbon paired with an IP geolocated to a hosting provider in another continent deserves a second look
- Geo-restricted content: When users report being blocked by region, the lookup shows which country your CDN or WAF believes their address belongs to
- Abuse reporting: The ISP and AS fields tell you which network operator should receive an abuse complaint
- Time zone sanity checks: Comparing the IP's time zone with login timestamps helps spot account takeovers performed from unusual regions
- Compliance routing: Services that must keep EU traffic in EU regions can verify how a given client range is classified
How to read the results
- Country: The most reliable field; for fixed-line ISPs in most regions it is correct the vast majority of the time
- Region / State and City: Best-effort estimates that often point to the ISP's point of presence or a regional gateway rather than the subscriber's town
- ZIP / Postal Code and Coordinates: The centroid of the estimated area, not a street address; treat the pin as a circle tens of kilometres wide
- Timezone: Derived from the estimated location in IANA format, for example America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires
- ISP and Organization: The access provider and, when known, the customer or business the block is assigned to
- ASN: The autonomous system announcing the prefix in BGP, shown as AS number plus name
Technical background
IP addresses carry no location inside them. Geolocation providers infer one by combining several sources. The foundation is registry data: the five Regional Internet Registries record which organization holds each block and in which country, published through WHOIS and RDAP. A RIPE NCC inetnum object with country: DE tells you the holder is in Germany, but says nothing about which city a particular /24 serves. Providers enrich this with self-published geofeeds, CSV files in the RFC 8805 format where operators declare prefix, country, region and city (for example 2001:db8:100::/48,AR,AR-C,Buenos Aires,), which RFC 9632 lets networks reference from their registry objects. Additional signals include latency triangulation from measurement probes, router hostnames that embed airport codes, and partner data such as Wi-Fi and app location correlations.
The resulting accuracy is uneven. Country-level results are right for the overwhelming majority of fixed broadband addresses. City-level accuracy is much lower and varies by country; being off by 50 to 200 km is normal, and in large countries an address may be placed at the ISP's headquarters or at the geographic centre of the country, which is why some coordinates fall in the middle of a field. When a provider only knows the country, it returns that country's centroid, a frequent source of wrong conclusions in investigations.
Several network designs break location assumptions outright. Mobile operators route subscribers through a small number of packet gateways, so a phone in one city often appears in another. Carrier-grade NAT (RFC 6598, 100.64.0.0/10 internally) means thousands of customers share one public IPv4 address. VPNs, Tor exit relays, iCloud Private Relay and corporate secure web gateways present the exit node's address, not the user's. Anycast addresses such as public DNS resolvers or CDN edges are announced from many cities simultaneously, so any single location for them is arbitrary. Recently transferred IPv4 blocks can keep stale data for weeks after moving between continents.
IPv6 adds its own challenges: allocations are large, operators rarely publish fine-grained geofeeds for them, and privacy extensions (RFC 8981) rotate interface identifiers but leave the /64 prefix stable, so geolocation applies to the prefix, not the device. The practical rule is to use country and ASN for policy decisions, treat city as a hint, and never use IP location to identify an individual's home. If your own network is mislocated, publish an RFC 8805 geofeed, reference it from your RIR object, and submit corrections to the major database operators.
Common errors and how to fix them
- Problem Your office IP is shown in a different city or even the wrong country.
- Fix Publish an RFC 8805 geofeed for your prefixes, add a geofeed: attribute or remark to your RIR inetnum/inet6num object (RFC 9632), and submit correction requests to the major geolocation database operators. Updates typically take one to several weeks.
- Problem Coordinates point to the geographic centre of a country, such as a field in Kansas for US addresses.
- Fix That is a country-level fallback, meaning the database has no city data for the block. Do not use those coordinates as a location; rely only on the country field.
- Problem A customer is blocked as 'foreign' while physically at home.
- Fix Check whether they are behind a VPN, iCloud Private Relay, a corporate proxy or a mobile carrier gateway. Allow-list by ASN or offer a non-IP verification step instead of hard geo-blocking.
- Problem The lookup returns 'private range' or 'reserved range'.
- Fix Addresses such as 10.x, 172.16-31.x, 192.168.x, 100.64.0.0/10, 127.x and fc00::/7 are not routed on the internet and have no geolocation. Look up the public address your NAT gateway presents instead.
- Problem A public DNS resolver or CDN address shows one specific city.
- Fix Those services use anycast and are announced from dozens of locations. Any single city is meaningless; use traceroute latency or the provider's PoP identifier headers to find which site actually serves you.
Do it from the command line
macOS
# Registry country and holder via WHOIS
whois 203.0.113.10 | grep -iE 'country|netname|orgname|descr'
# Reverse DNS often hints at city or PoP
dig -x 203.0.113.10 +shortWindows
# RDAP registration data (PowerShell)
Invoke-RestMethod https://rdap.arin.net/registry/ip/8.8.8.8 | Select-Object name, country, handle
# Reverse DNS lookup
Resolve-DnsName 8.8.8.8 -Type PTRLinux
# Full RDAP record, country field only
curl -s https://rdap.arin.net/registry/ip/8.8.8.8 | jq '.country, .name'
# WHOIS from the responsible RIR
whois -h whois.ripe.net 193.0.6.139
# Check a network's published geofeed
curl -s https://example.net/geofeed.csv | headMore questions about IP Location Lookup
How accurate is IP geolocation?
Country-level results are correct for the large majority of fixed broadband addresses. City-level accuracy is much lower, and errors of 50 to 200 kilometres are common, especially for mobile networks, CGNAT, satellite links and large countries. VPN and proxy users always appear at the exit node. Use the result as an estimate of the network's location, not the person's.
Can someone find my home address from my IP?
Not from public geolocation data. At best it shows the city or region of your ISP's equipment, and often not even that. Only your ISP can map an IP and timestamp to a subscriber account, and in most jurisdictions it discloses that only to law enforcement with a legal order.
Why does my IP show a different city than where I am?
Your traffic probably exits through a regional gateway, a carrier NAT, a VPN or a corporate proxy located elsewhere, or the database still holds stale data for a block your ISP recently moved. Mobile connections are the most affected because carriers centralise internet breakout in a few cities.
Where does IP location data come from?
From a mix of Regional Internet Registry records (WHOIS and RDAP), geofeeds that operators publish in the RFC 8805 format, network latency measurements, router naming conventions and commercial data partnerships. Each database weighs these sources differently, so two providers can disagree about the same address, especially below country level.
Does a VPN change my IP location?
Yes. Websites see the VPN server's public address, so geolocation reports the server's location. Some services also check whether the address belongs to a hosting or VPN provider's ASN, which is how streaming platforms detect VPN use even when the country appears correct.