How Accurate Is IP Geolocation?

When you check your IP on our home page, it shows an approximate location — often your city and region. But how does a number turn into a place on the map, and how accurate is it really? The short answer: good for country and city, unreliable for anything more precise.

How IP geolocation works

There is no GPS data in an IP address. Instead, geolocation providers build large databases that map IP address ranges to locations, using sources like:

• Regional internet registries that record which blocks of addresses are assigned to which ISPs and countries.
• ISP-provided information about where address ranges are used.
• Crowd-sourced and observed data correlating IPs with known locations.

When you look up an IP, the provider simply finds which range it belongs to and returns the associated location.

How accurate is it, really?

Accuracy depends entirely on the level of detail:

• Country: very accurate — typically 95–99%.
• Region / state: fairly accurate, but not guaranteed.
• City: roughly right much of the time, but can be off by tens of kilometres.
• Street address: not possible from IP alone. Anyone claiming this is mistaken.

Why it's sometimes wrong

A few common reasons your IP location looks off:

• ISP routing: your traffic may exit through a hub in another city, so you appear to be there instead of where you physically are.
• Mobile networks: carrier-grade NAT can place mobile users far from their real location.
• VPNs and proxies: if you use a VPN, your location reflects the VPN server, not you — which is exactly the point of hiding your IP.
• Database lag: address blocks get reassigned, and databases take time to catch up.

Can IP location identify me personally?

No. IP geolocation points to an area and an ISP — not a person, a name or a home address. It's approximate by design. For the difference between the address the world sees and the one on your own network, see public vs private IP.

Key takeaways

• IP geolocation maps address ranges to places using databases, not GPS.
• It's reliable at the country level and roughly accurate at the city level.
• It cannot reveal your exact street address or identity.
• VPNs, mobile networks and ISP routing can all make it inaccurate.