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Ben Portman
Ben Portman

Posted on AI-assisted

Internet access rose across six countries, at different speeds

#dataviz #data #python #opensource

A ranking is a snapshot. A time series shows how quickly access broadened.

I pulled the World Bank’s internet-use indicator for six countries from 2000 through 2024 and plotted the share of each population using the internet.

Internet use as a share of population in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, and the United States, 2000–2024. GlobalDataTracker.com

The six-country selection is illustrative, not a representative sample of the world.

What stands out

By 2024, internet use was reported at 94.7% in the United States, 94.4% in Canada, 93.5% in Germany, 92.0% in China, 84.5% in Brazil, and 64.9% in India.

All six series rose, but they did not follow the same path. India started from a much lower baseline and its steepest gains came later. Brazil’s adoption also accelerated over time. The three highest lines converged near the mid-90s by the end of this snapshot.

That is a description of the series, not an explanation of why the changes happened. Internet-use rates alone do not tell us about connection quality, affordability, hours online, or differences between urban and rural areas.

Open the interactive chart to compare the annual values.

Reproduce the series

The chart uses World Development Indicators series IT.NET.USER.ZS, “Individuals using the Internet (% of population).” The API query below returns the annual observations for the same countries and period:

import requests

url = (
    "https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/"
    "BRA;CAN;CHN;DEU;IND;USA/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS"
)
response = requests.get(
    url,
    params={"date": "2000:2024", "format": "json", "per_page": 2000},
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()

metadata, observations = response.json()
rows = [
    {
        "country": row["country"]["value"],
        "year": int(row["date"]),
        "internet_use_pct": row["value"],
    }
    for row in observations
    if row["value"] is not None
]
print(rows[:3])
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The World Bank’s indicator page explains the series. I also saved a dated, reproducible 150-row CSV snapshot with the source metadata; it includes GDP per person for the same six countries and years.

A note on timing

This is a static extract downloaded on 24 September 2026, and the latest year available in it is 2024. World Bank values can be revised as source data are updated. They are annual published statistics, not a live count of people coming online.

If you want to explore other countries, years, or indicators, GlobalDataTracker.com puts the source-linked country series in an interactive explorer.

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