An IP info lookup answers "what is my IP" and shows the geolocation, internet provider, and autonomous system behind any IPv4 or IPv6 address, yours or one you paste in.
What "my IP" actually means
The address shown by this kind of tool is the one your connection presents to the public internet, not the private address assigned to your device on your home or office network. A laptop typically has a local address like 192.168.1.42, but every request it sends is rewritten by the router's NAT (network address translation) to the single public IP your internet provider has assigned to that connection. Everyone on the same home network shares that one public address as far as the outside world is concerned.
A mobile connection often shows a different public IP on every check, because most mobile carriers use carrier-grade NAT and rotate the address pool across large numbers of subscribers. A residential broadband IP is usually stable for days or weeks between router reboots or ISP-side reassignment, but very few consumer ISPs hand out a permanently fixed address without a business plan.
IPv4 and IPv6 are separate addressing systems that can both be active on the same connection at once. IPv4 addresses are 32 bits, written as four decimal numbers (203.0.113.42); IPv6 addresses are 128 bits, written as eight groups of hexadecimal digits (2001:db8::1234). A dual-stack connection can report an IPv4 result from one lookup and an IPv6 result from another, depending on which protocol the client used to reach the server.
- Public IP: the address routers and servers on the internet see, assigned by the ISP or hosting provider
- Private IP: RFC 1918 ranges (10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, 192.168.0.0/16) reused inside local networks, invisible from outside
- IPv4 exhaustion is why carrier-grade NAT and shared addresses are now common on mobile and some broadband networks
- IPv6 was designed with enough address space that NAT is unnecessary, though many networks still run dual-stack for compatibility
Reading the lookup results
The tool reports the IP address itself along with its version (IPv4 or IPv6), then a set of fields sourced from geolocation and registry data: city, region, and country place the address on a map at roughly the accuracy of the ISP's regional infrastructure, not the street level. Reverse DNS, when present, is the hostname registered for that address in a PTR record - many consumer and cloud addresses have one, many do not, and its absence is not an error.
The ASN (autonomous system number) and network name identify who operates the block of addresses the IP belongs to. This is typically the internet service provider, the hosting company, or the corporate network the address was allocated to, not necessarily the individual or business actually using it at that moment. A single ASN can cover millions of addresses across an entire ISP's footprint.
| Field | Example value | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| IP address | 203.0.113.42 | The public address currently routing your traffic |
| IP version | IPv4 | Whether the address is a 32-bit IPv4 or 128-bit IPv6 address |
| Reverse DNS | net-42.example-isp.net | Hostname registered for the address in a PTR record, if one exists |
| ASN | AS64500 | The autonomous system announcing this address range on the internet |
| Network | Example ISP Ltd. | Organization operating that autonomous system or address block |
| City / Region / Country | Lyon / Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes / France | Approximate location tied to the ISP's regional allocation, not a precise device location |
Why geolocation is approximate, not exact
IP geolocation databases work by correlating address blocks with the city or region where an ISP registered them, combined with routing and infrastructure data. There is no protocol field in IP itself that carries a physical location - geolocation is inferred, not transmitted. Accuracy is usually reliable at the country level, often reliable at the city level for fixed broadband, and considerably less reliable for mobile networks, satellite links, and any address behind carrier-grade NAT, where thousands of subscribers can share one address registered to a regional hub far from any individual user.
VPNs, corporate proxies, and cloud hosting deliberately change what a lookup sees: the public IP becomes the VPN exit node, the proxy server, or the cloud instance, so the reported location reflects that intermediary's infrastructure rather than the original device. This is expected behavior, not a fault in the lookup.
Looking up someone else's IP address
The same lookup works for any public IPv4 or IPv6 address, not only your own connection - paste in an address from a server log, an email header, or a support ticket to see its approximate location, provider, and network details. Private addresses (the RFC 1918 ranges, and their IPv6 equivalent unique local addresses) cannot be looked up meaningfully this way, because they are not globally routed and the same private address is reused independently inside millions of separate networks.
A looked-up address's ASN and network name are useful for a quick read on whether traffic originates from a residential ISP, a data center, or a known cloud provider - a distinction commonly used as one signal among several when triaging suspicious traffic, though it is not proof of intent by itself.
FAQ
Why is my IP address in a different city or even a different country than where I actually am?
Geolocation databases map address blocks to the location an ISP registered them under, which is often a regional data center or headquarters rather than your exact location. Mobile connections, VPNs, and carrier-grade NAT all widen this gap further, since the visible IP may belong to infrastructure far from the subscriber.
Does my IP address change over time?
For most home broadband connections, yes - ISPs commonly reassign addresses from a shared pool (DHCP) whenever a router reconnects, though the same address can persist for weeks without change. Mobile connections tend to rotate more frequently due to carrier-grade NAT. An address labeled static by a business-tier plan stays fixed until deliberately reconfigured.
What is the difference between my public IP and the IP shown in my router or computer settings?
The IP in your device or router settings is usually a private address from an RFC 1918 range, valid only inside your local network. The public IP is the single address your router presents to the internet after NAT rewrites outgoing traffic - this is the address a lookup tool or any external server actually sees.
Can two people have the same public IP address at the same time?
Yes, under carrier-grade NAT, which many mobile carriers and some broadband ISPs use to stretch a limited pool of IPv4 addresses across large numbers of subscribers. The distinguishing detail on the ISP's side is the port number paired with the shared address, which is not visible to an ordinary IP lookup.
Why does the ASN show my internet provider's name instead of my own?
The autonomous system number identifies whoever operates the block of addresses your IP was allocated from, which for a home or mobile connection is the ISP itself. Individual subscribers are never assigned their own ASN - that only applies to organizations that run independent routing policy, such as large enterprises, hosting providers, or the ISPs themselves.
Is looking up someone else's IP address the same as tracking their exact location?
No. A public IP lookup returns an approximate city or region tied to ISP infrastructure, not a street address or precise coordinates. Getting an exact physical location generally requires the ISP itself, acting on a legal request, since ISPs are the only party that can map an address to a specific subscriber account.
Related tools
- Look up the registered netblock, allocating registry, and abuse contact for an IP instead of geolocation
- Resolve the PTR hostname for an IP address directly, with the full DNS record detail
- Work out the network range, mask, and usable host count for an IP block
- Query any domain's DNS records once you know which server or network an IP belongs to