Last week we showed that the top 1 million web sites in the world were hosted in almost 8,000 different cites. If these top sites were evenly distributed across the world, there would be about 5,900 sites hosted in each nation, but is that really the case?
Following up our own 2012 study, we present this year’s survey of the top 100 web hosting countries. What do you think the major developments were since last year?
Top 20 web hosting countries
In total, we identified 191 different countries that hosted one or more of the Alexa top million web sites. This means that over 90% of the world’s nations host at least one of the top million sites. But they are not at all evenly distributed. To start of, here is a chart of the top 20:
Some comparisons with last years study:
- The top 4, with the United States, Germany, China and the United Kingdom, have not changed.
- The United States is still in a big lead, hosting about 42% of the top million sites. Germany, in second place, host only about 7%.
- Russia is up to 5th place from 7th, passing France and Japan.
- Poland is up from 13th place to 10th, passing Brazil, Italy and Spain.
- Italy is down three places to 13th.
- Singapore and Sweden are both new on the list.
- Hong Kong and South Korea has lost their places on the list since 2012.
US vs Europe and Asia
Grouping the European and Asian countries into regions may give us some perspective of just how crushing the lead for the United States is.
If we compare the United States, with 42.1% of the sites, to Europe, with 31.4%, it may not be the exact same numbers as last year but they are well within the margin of error. Asia is far behind both Europe and the United States, hosting just over 11% of the top sites.
It should be noted that these three regions together hosts almost 84% of the sites we where able to scan.
Top 100 countries
In addition to the top 20 chart, here are the top 100 nations.
| Ranking 2013 | Country | Sites | Ranking 2012 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 421,228 | 1 |
| 2 | Germany | 70,587 | 2 |
| 3 | China | 35,908 | 3 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 35,500 | 4 |
| 5 | Russia | 35,245 | 7 |
| 6 | France | 34,498 | 5 |
| 7 | Japan | 29,898 | 6 |
| 8 | Netherlands | 25,632 | 6 |
| 9 | Canada | 18,116 | 9 |
| 10 | Poland | 12,109 | 13 |
| 11 | Spain | 12,062 | 11 |
| 12 | Brazil | 10,807 | 12 |
| 13 | Italy | 9,764 | 10 |
| 14 | Turkey | 8,498 | 14 |
| 15 | Ukraine | 8,401 | 16 |
| 16 | Czech Republic | 7,319 | 17 |
| 17 | Australia | 7,299 | 15 |
| 18 | India | 7,254 | 18 |
| 19 | Singapore | 5,479 | 22 |
| 20 | Sweden | 5,201 | 21 |
| 21 | Hong Kong | 4,641 | 19 |
| 22 | Romania | 4,417 | 27 |
| 23 | Korea (South) | 4,252 | 20 |
| 24 | Denmark | 4,170 | 25 |
| 25 | Ireland | 4,109 | 24 |
| 26 | Switzerland | 4,014 | 26 |
| 27 | Vietnam | 3,944 | 28 |
| 28 | Iran | 3,925 | 32 |
| 29 | Thailand | 3,921 | 23 |
| 30 | Indonesia | 3,671 | 30 |
| 31 | Virgin Islands | 3,397 | 36 |
| 32 | Hungary | 3,044 | 29 |
| 33 | Taiwan | 2,901 | 31 |
| 34 | Austria | 2,351 | 33 |
| 35 | Argentina | 2,291 | 34 |
| 36 | Belgium | 2,275 | 37 |
| 37 | South Africa | 2,096 | 39 |
| 38 | Malaysia | 1,996 | 35 |
| 39 | Bulgaria | 1,994 | 42 |
| 40 | Norway | 1,961 | 38 |
| 41 | Israel | 1,775 | 40 |
| 42 | Portugal | 1,757 | 41 |
| 43 | Bahamas | 1,739 | 45 |
| 44 | Finland | 1,687 | 43 |
| 45 | Slovakia | 1,372 | 47 |
| 46 | Lithuania | 1,333 | 46 |
| 47 | Pakistan | 1,225 | 44 |
| 48 | Mexico | 1,156 | 49 |
| 49 | Latvia | 1,107 | 51 |
| 50 | New Zealand | 1,040 | 48 |
| 51 | Greece | 914 | 54 |
| 52 | Belarus | 900 | 53 |
| 53 | Kazakhstan | 864 | 55 |
| 54 | Slovenia | 859 | 52 |
| 55 | Chile | 839 | 50 |
| 56 | Luxembourg | 665 | 57 |
| 57 | Estonia | 657 | 56 |
| 58 | Croatia | 579 | 58 |
| 59 | Colombia | 458 | 59 |
| 60 | Serbia | 443 | 61 |
| 61 | Saudi Arabia | 375 | 63 |
| 62 | Cyprus | 362 | 65 |
| 63 | Panama | 346 | 60 |
| 64 | Venezuela | 338 | 64 |
| 65 | Azerbaijan | 324 | 68 |
| 66 | Philippines | 324 | 62 |
| 67 | Egypt | 319 | 69 |
| 68 | Iceland | 319 | 75 |
| 69 | United Arab Emirates | 303 | 67 |
| 70 | Georgia | 244 | 71 |
| 71 | Moldova | 221 | 70 |
| 72 | Malta | 217 | – |
| 73 | Costa Rica | 211 | 73 |
| 74 | Uzbekistan | 203 | – |
| 75 | Peru | 175 | 66 |
| 76 | Mongolia | 168 | 74 |
| 77 | Macedonia | 134 | 81 |
| 78 | Bangladesh | 122 | 80 |
| 79 | Ecuador | 121 | 77 |
| 80 | Sri Lanka | 116 | 78 |
| 81 | Kuwait | 108 | 86 |
| 82 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | 107 | 85 |
| 83 | Uruguay | 101 | 84 |
| 84 | Kyrgyzstan | 86 | 89 |
| 85 | Morocco | 86 | 82 |
| 86 | Curaçao | 84 | 83 |
| 87 | Cayman Islands | 79 | 79 |
| 88 | Armenia | 76 | 87 |
| 89 | Dominican Republic | 75 | 88 |
| 90 | Nigeria | 74 | 98 |
| 91 | Jordan | 69 | 93 |
| 92 | Bahrain | 65 | – |
| 93 | Tunisia | 64 | – |
| 94 | Cambodia | 63 | – |
| 95 | Seychelles | 60 | 90 |
| 96 | Qatar | 59 | 92 |
| 97 | Kenya | 57 | 91 |
| 98 | Algeria | 51 | – |
| 99 | Puerto Rico | 49 | 97 |
| 100 | Liechtenstein | 47 | 94 |
As you can see, five countries are new on the list: Algeria, Bahrain, Cambodia, Malta and Tunisia. The ones that have fallen out of the list are Belize, Bolivia, Mauritius, San Marino and Syria.
Will web hosting in Asia catch up?
Last year we asked ourselves if the rest of the world would catch up with the United States. Looking at this year’s results, there are no signs of that happening any time soon.
What will be interesting to see is what will happen to web hosting in Asia. More than 25% of the Internet users of the world already live in Asia; will that start to show in hosting locations to? Let us now what you think.
About the data: The data was collected February 27, 2013, with a Pingdom-developed script that successfully scanned 907,625 out of Alexa’s top 1 million sites. The remaining sites failed to be scanned for various reasons. We should point out that web hosting is a constantly moving target, so where a particular site is hosted may have changed by the time you read this.
