Top 20 Countries by Number of Internet Users

Videos for Engineers

Here is a really interesting animation of the world's top 20 country ranked by the number of Internet users in those countries. It runs (as of this posting date) from 1990 through 2019. I have not verified the numbers used by the Animated Stats producers, but the results do not seem unreasonable. Given the the U.S. Department of Defense's research arm, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), created the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) that eventually became the Internet (no, Al Gore didn't invent it), showing the U.S. as the run-away leader in the beginning is not surprising. Around 1996, things begin to change quickly as Japan advances, but it is in 2000 when the Internet user landscape really becomes dynamic. The sudden movement was fueled by graphical browsers like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. Mosaic, was the first popular Windows-based graphical browser, but it was obviously a Unix porting that was kind of clunky (it was my first browser in the early 1990s). I won't spoil the ending for you by saying which country leads the pack by 2019, but you will not be surprised. As of 2015, the United States wasn't even in second place anymore.

Posted September 16, 2019