What you should know about this indicator
- An Internet user is defined by the International Telecommunication Union as anyone who has accessed the Internet from any location in the last three months.
- This can be from any type of device, including a computer, mobile phone, personal digital assistant, games machine, digital TV, and other technological devices.
- Figures for the world and for the World Bank's regions and income groups come from the World Bank.
- We calculated the figures for Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania ourselves, and only show a year for a continent if countries with data make up at least 90% of its population.
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Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
We calculated the number of Internet users by multiplying the share of the population using the Internet by the total population, both published in the World Development Indicators.
For Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania, we calculated the share of the population using the Internet ourselves, using our definition of the continents. For each continent and year, we took the average of the shares of the countries with data, weighted by each country's population. This assumes that countries without data have the same share as the rest of their continent. We then multiplied this share by the continent's total population.
We only kept a year for a continent if the countries with data make up at least 90% of its population. This removes 2025 for every continent, some or all of the years 1991–1995 depending on the continent, and 2002–2004 for Oceania, when there is no data for Australia.
All population figures come from the World Development Indicators. Countries that the World Development Indicators do not cover, such as Taiwan, are not included in the continents.
Figures for the world and for the World Bank's regions and income groups come from the World Bank.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Number of people using the Internet”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Edouard Mathieu, Max Roser, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2023) - “Internet”. Data adapted from World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database - International Telecommunication Union (ITU), via World Bank, United Nations Population Division, national statistical offices, and Eurostat, via World Bank. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260929-210819/grapher/number-of-internet-users.html [online resource] (archived on September 29, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database - International Telecommunication Union (ITU), via World Bank (2026); United Nations Population Division, national statistical offices, and Eurostat, via World Bank (2026) – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database - International Telecommunication Union (ITU), via World Bank (2026); United Nations Population Division, national statistical offices, and Eurostat, via World Bank (2026) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Number of people using the Internet – World Bank – International Telecommunication Union” [dataset]. World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Database - International Telecommunication Union (ITU), via World Bank, “World Development Indicators 129”; United Nations Population Division, national statistical offices, and Eurostat, via World Bank, “World Development Indicators 129” [original data]. Retrieved September 30, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260929-210819/grapher/number-of-internet-users.html (archived on September 29, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-internet-users.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear