What an IP address tells you
An IP address is the numeric label that identifies your connection on the internet. When your device talks to a website, the site sees the public IP address of your network, usually assigned by your internet provider. Your router then keeps track of which device inside your home or office asked for what.
From that address, location databases can guess where the connection is registered. The guess is approximate. It often points to a city or region near you, but it may instead point to your provider's regional hub, and it can be wrong by a wide margin. An IP address does not give a street address.
This tool shows four things: the IP address itself, plus the city, region, and country the lookup service associates with it. If the service has no data for a field, the tool shows a dash.
Why people look up their IP
Common reasons include checking which address a website or game server will see, filling in an allowlist for a firewall or remote service, or confirming that a VPN is actually changing your apparent location. IT staff and support teams may ask you for your public IP when troubleshooting access problems.
Others are simply curious how accurate location guesses are. Comparing the city shown with your real one gives a fair picture of how precise IP-based location is, which is a useful lesson in how websites can estimate where you are without any permission prompt.
Remember this tool reports your own public address only. It does not let you type in someone else's address to look them up, so it is not a way to trace other people.
How to use the lookup
- Open the page. The lookup starts automatically and shows "Looking up your IP address..." while it works.
- When it finishes, read the tiles for IP address, City, Region, and Country.
- Click Refresh to run the lookup again, for example after you connect or disconnect a VPN.
- If you see an error saying the service could not be reached, wait a moment and try again.
Be aware this is not a fully local tool. To work out the result, your browser makes a request to a third-party service, ipapi.co, and your IP address is sent to it so that it can look up the location. The page states this directly. If you prefer not to contact an outside service, do not use the tool.
Why the result may not match what you expect
A VPN or proxy changes the result. The service sees the address of the VPN server or proxy, not your own connection, so the location shown will be where that server is registered. That is exactly what makes this tool useful for checking whether your VPN is working.
Mobile networks and large corporate networks can also show locations far from you, because many users share a few exit addresses. Free lookup services can be rate-limited, which is why the tool says the service "may be rate-limited" when a request fails. Pressing Refresh repeatedly will not help; wait a bit instead.
For other checks of what your browser reveals about itself, see What Is My User Agent.