IP Lookup

The IP lookup tool shows the approximate registration details of a public IP address: country or region, state or province, city, ISP or organization, time zone and coordinates. If you leave the input blank, it looks up the public IP address you are currently connecting from. Be aware of how it works: the tool has no IP database of its own. Every lookup makes your browser send a request to the third-party service ipapi.co and then displays what that service returns. So accuracy and availability depend on that service, and the address you look up is sent to it. An IP location is only a rough indication; it cannot pinpoint a street address or identify a person.

How to use it

1. Above the input box a privacy notice says the IP you enter (or your public IP when left blank) is sent to the third-party service ipapi.co. Continue once you are fine with that.
2. Type the address you want to look up in the input box, for example 8.8.8.8. To see your own current public IP, leave the box empty.
3. Click Look up, or press Enter in the box. While the request is running the button reads 'Looking up…' and cannot be clicked.
4. The result lists the IP address, Country / Region (with the country code), Province / State, City, ISP / Organization, Timezone and Coordinates. Fields the service did not return are shown as '-'.
5. The copy button beside the Result heading copies all fields, one per line, in 'name: value' format.
6. If a red message appears, it tells the causes apart: the input is not in IP format (for example a URL), the address is invalid or private/reserved, the third-party service is rate-limiting you, or there is a network error or the service is unavailable. Follow the message to check your input or try again later.

What each field means

• IP address: the address you looked up, or your current public address if you left the box empty.
• Country / Region: the country name and two-letter code that the third-party database has registered for this address.
• Province / State and City: the location registered or inferred for the address's network. It is often where the provider's network node is, not where the user physically is, and it can differ between databases.
• ISP / Organization: the network provider, company or institution that owns the address. It sometimes appears as an autonomous system number followed by a name.
• Timezone: the time zone name for that location.
• Coordinates: a rough point, usually near the center of a city or area. Precision is low, so do not treat it as an exact place.

Example scenarios

After switching on a VPN or proxy, leave the box empty and look up once to see whether websites now see an exit address in the country you want. If you get a suspicious sign-in alert, you can enter the address from that alert to learn which country and provider it came from. A site owner can check a few addresses from server logs to get a rough idea of where visitors come from. All of this is only a hint; do not conclude who someone is or where they are from a single IP lookup.

Limits and known quirks

• Results come entirely from the third-party service ipapi.co. The page distinguishes three failure messages (rate-limited, invalid or private address, and network error or service unavailable) but cannot tell finer causes apart. Free lookups commonly have rate limits, so repeated lookups in a row may fail.
• Only a basic format check is done before the request: input containing characters other than hex digits, colons and dots (such as a URL or domain) immediately shows a message asking for a valid IP address. An address that looks right but is not valid is still sent and ends in the 'invalid address' message.
• Private addresses (those starting with 192.168 or 10, for example) and loopback addresses are not public IPs, and usually return nothing meaningful.
• IPv4 and IPv6 forms can be entered, but whether a result comes back depends on the third-party service.
• Location accuracy is limited. For people behind carrier NAT, a company gateway, a mobile network, a cloud server, a VPN or a proxy, the location is typically where the network exits, which can be far from the real location, and even city-level results can be wrong.
• Only one address can be checked at a time. There is no batch lookup and no domain lookup; you must enter an IP address, not a web address.
• The page does not keep a lookup history, and it clears on reload.

Why does the city shown not match where I live?

IP geolocation is inferred from network registrations and statistics. It is not GPS. Your broadband provider may route traffic out of a nearby city or the provincial capital, and mobile networks and VPNs are even less precise. The city shown only says the address is registered somewhere near that area.

What does a blank lookup do, and is my information sent?

With the box empty, the browser calls the service without a specific address, and the service identifies you from the request and returns your current public IP and its details. This means ipapi.co sees your public IP, as any web service would when you connect to it. That is not specific to this site, but if you do not want it, do not use this tool.

Can an IP address be used to find a person?

No. An IP location is only accurate to a city or a wider area, and many users commonly share one public IP, so it cannot identify a person or a doorstep. Tracing wrongdoing requires legal process directed at the provider.

Does a failure message mean I typed something wrong?

Maybe, maybe not. Common causes include a badly formatted address, a private address, the third-party service being temporarily unavailable or rate-limiting you, or a network or browser extension blocking requests to ipapi.co. Try a public address such as 8.8.8.8 to tell whether the problem is your input or the service.

Privacy and processing

This site runs no server-side IP database and does not store your lookups. However, the tool depends on an outside service: the IP you enter (or your own public IP if you leave the box empty) is sent directly from your browser to ipapi.co, which handles it under its own privacy policy. For sensitive addresses, consider whether you are comfortable with a third party seeing the query. Results appear only on the current page, and are written to the clipboard only when you click copy.