We’ve all seen those old maps that plotted, for example, the reach of the Roman Empire, or the even larger British Empire of the 19nth and 20th centuries. We have marveled that relatively small nations could have spread their influence so far and wide.
While a few nations still dabble in the empire business, either literally, militarily or culturally, there is a different kind of empire happening today: digital empires. A U.K.-based Web project by the Oxford Internet Institute recently plotted the most visited website for each nation in the world, and the results are fascinating. Google (News - Alert) and Facebook occupy the positions enjoyed once by Queen Victoria or Julius Caesar.
The map was created using freely available data from Web site analytics firm Alexa back in August. The graphic was prepared “using a combination of the estimated average daily unique visitors to a site and the estimated number of page views on that site from users in that country over the past month.” The results from the Alexa data was then styled to appear as an antique map named after the computer game series “Age of Empire.”
(Click to enlarge)
Google is the dominant player in North America, Europe, Brazil, India, Australia and the southern pacific region known as “Oceana.” Facebook (News - Alert) dominates much of South America (minus Brazil), the Middle East and North Africa. (Interestingly, Facebook appears to be the dominant website in most Spanish-speaking nations aside from Spain itself.) China and South Korea are dominated by Chinese search engine Baidu, and Russia is dominated by Russian search engine Yandex (News - Alert).
The project’s authors note that the data, if not the map, show Google’s dominance over the world.
“The power of Google on the Internet becomes starkly evident if we also look at the second most visited website in every country,” wrote the researchers. “Among the 50 countries that have Facebook listed as the most visited website, 36 of them have Google as the second most visited, and the remaining 14 countries list YouTube (News - Alert) (currently owned by Google).”
Google also stands as the Web site used by the most people globally, the researchers say. The countries where Google is the most visited Web site account for half of the entire Internet population, with over one billion people. Baidu comes in second in this ranking, given the large populations of China and South Korea.
Edited by Alisen Downey
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