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The top 100 web hosting countries

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:

top 20 web hosting nations

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.

hosting europe us asia

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.

Top 100 web hosting countries
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.

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