IP Tools
IP Lookup
Enter any IPv4 or IPv6 address to see who owns it, which network announces it, its registered country, hostname and abuse contact.
How it works
First the tool checks what kind of address you entered. Private, loopback, link-local and documentation addresses are explained straight away, because nobody owns them on the internet.
For a public address it asks three free sources at the same time: the regional internet registry (through RDAP) for the owner, address block and country; Team Cymru's DNS service for the network number (ASN) that announces it; and reverse DNS for its hostname. Want to understand the results? See Public and private IP addresses.
FAQ
- Can this tool show the exact location of an IP address?
- No. It shows the country where the address block's owner is registered, which is often but not always where the address is used. City-level location comes from commercial databases that guess from many signals, and even those are often wrong for home and mobile connections. An IP address never reveals a street address.
- Where does this information come from?
- Owner, block and country come from the regional internet registries (ARIN, RIPE NCC, APNIC, LACNIC and AFRINIC) through RDAP, the modern replacement for WHOIS. The network number (ASN) comes from Team Cymru's public IP-to-ASN service, and the hostname from an ordinary reverse DNS lookup.
- Why does my home IP show my internet provider's name?
- Internet providers own large address blocks and lend addresses to customers. The registry only knows the provider, not which customer is using an address at a given moment.
- Why can't I look up 192.168.1.1?
- 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x and 172.16–31.x.x are private addresses. Millions of networks reuse them, so nobody owns them on the internet. The tool tells you what kind of address it is instead.
- What is an ASN?
- An Autonomous System Number identifies one organisation's network on the internet, such as an internet provider, a cloud company or a large business. Routers use these numbers (through BGP) to decide how to reach each address block.