Internet access has become increasingly prevalent in middle-income countries.
But the lowest-income nations, especially those in Sub-Saharan Africa, continue to lag behind.
Click and drag the slider bar or any bubble to see the indicators change over time, or sit back and enjoy the show
20002016
Americas
Europe and Central Asia
Middle East and North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
South Asia
East Asia and the Pacific
*Bubble size represents population size for given year
Here we have attempted to demonstrate the relationship between GDP per capita and the percent people accessing the Internet for each country. A few observations jump out:
In 2000, only countries with the highest GDP per capita saw significant numbers accessing the Internet; these countries were concentrated in Europe and North America, and included a few high-GDP nations of East Asia and the Pacific (e.g., Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Singapore).
Over time, middle-income nations, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, saw increasing an increasing number of citizens accessing the Internet. In particular, Morocco, Lebanon, Iran, and Tunisia saw a rapid uptake in Internet access.
Among high-income countries, Internet access also became common outside of Europe and North America. Again, the Middle East and North Africa stand out. Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, all high-income countries with low rates of access in the early 2000s, equaled or overtook many European nations in terms of access rates by 2016.
High-population countries including India, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh continue to see relatively low access rates, likely because a large percentage of their populations continue to live in rural areas.
Internet access rates continue to be regionally segregated. Sub-Saharan Africa lags far behind the rest of the world in Internet access, with a few exceptions (e.g., South Africa). The only noticeable outliers are war-torn Yemen, Haiti, and small island nations in the Pacific.