Share of the population using the Internet: definition and caveats

What it measures

Share of the population who used the Internet in the last three months. Unit: % of population.

Key points from Our World in Data

• 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.
• 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.

How Our World in Data processed it

For Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America, and Oceania, we calculated the share 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 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.

Source and producers · All share of the population using the internet figures.