IP Geolocation returns an approximate country, region, city, autonomous system number (ASN) and organisation for a public IP address, read from a local copy of the free DB-IP Lite databases rather than a live lookup, so treat city-level results as indicative, not precise. Private and reserved addresses are refused.
How to read the result
Country is usually reliable; city is a best estimate and can be wrong, especially for mobile networks, VPNs and carrier-grade NAT, where many subscribers share a small pool of addresses far from where any individual sits.
ASN and organisation identify the network operator, which is often more useful for a security decision than the city: a hosting provider's ASN behaves very differently to a residential ISP's.
Defender tips
- Do not gate access purely on country from geo-IP; combine it with ASN reputation and behavioural signals, and expect it to be one layer, not a decision on its own.
- VPN, proxy and CGNAT traffic will consistently misreport location; if a control depends on geography, plan for that population explicitly rather than treating misses as false positives.
- Re-check periodically: address allocations move between organisations and databases refresh on their own schedule, not yours.
FAQ
Why is the city wrong?
IP geolocation databases infer location from allocation records and routing data, not GPS. City-level accuracy is a best effort and is commonly off by tens to hundreds of kilometres, more for mobile and satellite ranges.
Can this identify a specific person?
No. It resolves to a network allocation, at best a city, never an individual or a street address.
How often is the database updated?
Monthly, from DB-IP's free Lite release (the attribution link is shown with every result).