A visual representation of the internet [Infographic]

PEER 1, an IT hosting provider, has produced a visual interpretation of the internet. It identifies 19 869 autonomous system nodes with 44 344 connections.

The sizing and layout of the autonomous systems are based on their eigenvector centrality, which is a measure of how central to the network each autonomous system is: an autonomous system is central if it is connected to other autonomous systems that are central. This is the same graph-theoretical concept that forms the basis of Google’s PageRank algorithm.

The Map of the internet image layout begins with the most central nodes and proceeds to the least, positioning them on a grid that subdivides after each order of magnitude of centrality. Within the constraints of the current subdivision level, nodes are placed as near as possible to previously-placed nodes that they are connected to.