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The internet has revolutionised the way we communicate and a third of the world's population use it to stay connected.

Now, Texas-based internet cartographer and computer scientist John Matherly has used software to 'ping' all of these global web devices and create a map demonstrating the technology's global reach. 

In the majority of cases, this signal was sent to routers rather than individual gadgets, but Mr Matherly said iPhone and Android devices have appeared previously.

Connected: Texas-based internet cartographer and computer scientist John Matherly has used software to 'ping' global web devices to build a map (pictured) demonstrating the technology's global reach

The cartographer said it took around five hours to ping all IP addresses on August 2. The map then took more than 12 hours to create.

'Pinging' an IP address involves sending a signal to the device from a server, which causes the connection to 'light up' - albeit not physically. 

Mr Matherly is founder of Shodan, a search engine for connected devices. 

Different colours represent the density of devices in that region, and unsurprisingly, the world's largest cities in developed countries glow the brightest.

Red areas contain a lot of web-enabled devices, while green areas contain fewer. Black areas are regions where no signal was received.

While it may be no surprise that there seem to be less internet-connected devices in parts of Africa, Mr Matherly explained his map is not precise because some organisations block ping requests.

It is thought that areas of China should be coloured bright red on the map, but the country's 'Great Firewall' explains why most of the country looks dark.

The cartographer said it took five hours to 'ping' all IP addresses on 2 August. The map then took more than 12 hours to create. Red areas contain a lot of web-enabled devices, while black areas contain the fewest. It is easy to see how well-connected areas like Europe and the US (pictured) contrast with Greenland and Africa

Internet blackout: It is thought that areas of China should be coloured bright red on the map, but the country's 'Great Firewall' explains why most of the country looks dark (pictured).

'There's basically not a lot of information available on where an IP address is located within China, which makes mapping it very difficult. The majority of devices simply get lumped into Shanghai or Beijing, even though they might be located somewhere else within the country,' he wrote.

Explaining how he made the map, Mr Matherly said: 'The data was generated using a stateless scanner used to create Shodan (a computer search engine that he founded).

'A free, open-source scanner called Zmap is readily available for anybody that wants to do it themselves, and the map itself was generated using the Python matplotlib library.

In the last year, it has become easy to scan the whole internet using such tools, where an individual sends and receives packets to everyone connected to the internet, Motherboard reported.

Mr Matherly essentially asked computers, smartphones, tablets and games consoles to send him their location so he could create his map.

To do this, he used a database that pinpoints a city for each IP address and used another tool to find them easily on a map of the world.