The above is a map of the North American Internet, as drawn by Bill Cheswick of Lumenta, a network intelligence company. Unlike some of his other work already on the Internet, this map uses fairly recent data (collected on March 8, 2006) and is available in pdf format. The map, of course, is not geographic (even though each node or router has a geographic location); rather the manner in which items are laid out reflects the shortest path from a test computer in New Jersey to the various announced nets on the Internet. “Each end node can represent a handful of computers on a small network, or perhaps a parge company with hundreds of thousands of hosts.” The colours on the map inidicate different corporate ownership.

Read Ben Worthen’s CIO blog entry on the map.