James Pero

Design

Someone made a world map of the internet’s most popular sites

Welcome to the United States of Googleandia.

World map of the internet by Martin Vargic. Data visualization. Art. Data viz. Graphic design. Carto...

Pop Quiz...

Which country shares a border with YouTube? Is Pornhub a coastal region or land-locked? Which body of water separates LinkedIn and Facebook?

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If you found any of those questions tough, we recommend you study your geography, no not that geography — your internet geography.

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Here. This is what we mean.

This “world map” of the internet is the creation of digital artist and data viz maven, Martin Vargic, who manages to categorize thousands of the internet’s most popular sites as if they were physical countries on Earth.

In Vargic’s map, sites (countries) are conjoined by category, with separate regions for things like search engines, e-commerce, databases, and much, much more. The borders are also color-coded with the dominant color of each corresponding site.

Imagine a trip to the Web Browser Islands

Or central News Media

Maybe a holiday in Pornhub? (18+ only)

While this isn’t the first world map of the internet from Vargic, he says it’s by far the most detailed. It’s also the most up-to-date — this data viz snapshot of the web from 2020 to 2021.

📷: Vargic's original map of the internet.

The geography is technically imaginary, but Vargic did include some unimagined information around the maps perimeter, like which sites are the most popular, or which have been blocked in China.

And if mapping the internet isn’t your thing, Vargic also has lots of other imaginative cartography to ogle, like...

A map of literature

Settings of animated movies

A map of the night sky

Want to see more?

If you’re into Vargic’s brand of data of data viz, you can check out his site where you can also buy prints of his work.

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