What is an IP address lookup?
An IP lookup takes an IP address and returns everything publicly known about it: the approximate geographic location (country, region and city), the organisation that owns the address space, the Internet Service Provider, and the Autonomous System Number (ASN) that routes it. Leave the field blank and the tool will look up your own public IP automatically.
IP geolocation works by mapping address blocks to the networks that announce them and to registration data held by the regional internet registries. It is accurate to the country level almost always, and often to the city, but it reflects the network's location rather than a precise street address.
How to read the results
- —IP address — the address that was looked up (or your own public IP).
- —Country / Region / City — the approximate geolocation of the network.
- —ISP / Organization — the provider and the entity that owns or uses the address block.
- —ASN — the Autonomous System Number, a unique identifier for the network on the global routing table.
- —Latitude / Longitude / Timezone — a coarse coordinate and timezone for the network.
Common uses
Analysts use IP lookups to identify the hosting provider behind a website, to triage suspicious traffic in server logs, and to confirm whether an address belongs to a data centre, a residential ISP or a VPN provider. The ASN and organisation fields are especially useful for grouping related infrastructure during an investigation.
Remember that geolocation is an estimate. VPNs, proxies, mobile carriers and cloud providers can place an IP far from its real-world user, so treat the location as the network's footprint rather than a person's address.