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Following reports there are now more than a billion websites, researchers have created a map that reveals just how far and wide these sites penetrate the globe.

The map was created by researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute using 2011 data on web users and total population datasets from the World Bank.

It reveals that China is now home to the world's largest internet population at over half a billion, followed by the US, India, and Japan. 

Hover your mouse over the interactive module to explore the map 

The map was created by researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute using 2011 data on web users from the World Bank. The data is visualised using a hexagon-shaped cartogram, in which the size of each country is drawn based on its penetration. Each hexagon accounts for approximately one third of a million internet users

The data is visualised using what's known as a hexagon-shaped cartogram, in which the size of each country is drawn based on its internet-enabled population. 

Each hexagon accounts for approximately one third of a million internet users. 

Cartographers Dr Mark Graham and Stefano De Sabbata from the institute said countries with fewer than that number were removed from the map. 

This included a number of African countries including Chad and Niger. 

The shading of each country reflects its internet penetration rate, and darker shades indicate higher levels of internet usage in that population.

This means that some countries may appear larger because they have a higher proportion of people using the web, but when compared to the population as a whole, the penetration may be low.

The World Bank has tracked the number of web users and connections per country since the 1996, as part of its Worldwide Governance Indicators project.

Its data reveals that 42 per cent of the world's internet users live in Asia - and China, India, and Japan alone host more internet users than Europe and North America combined.

The top category of internet penetration is where more than 80 per cent of residents are online, and few of the world's largest countries fall into this category. 

This suggests that in all of the world's largest internet nations, there is still substantial room for growth, claim the researchers.

All but four of the countries with an internet penetration rate of more 80 per cent are in Europe, including Denmark, the UK, and Germany.

The exceptions are Canada, New Zealand, Qatar, and South Korea. 

Most Latin American countries now have a penetration rate of more than 40 per cent, and the region as a whole now hosts almost as many internet users as the US, continued the researchers. 

In the last three years, almost all North African countries have doubled their population of web users, with Algeria being the exception.

However, more than half of Sub-Saharan African countries have a penetration of less than 10 per cent. 

Last month, Texas-based internet cartographer and computer scientist John Matherly used software to 'ping' every web device on the globe, and used the signals to create a map (pictured) demonstrating the technology's global reach

Last year, Dr Graham and Mr De Sabbata used data from analytics firm Alexa to map the largest websites around the world (pictured). Google topped the list, in 62 countries, Facebook was the second most visited site globally, in 50 countries, while third place, China's Baidu search engine, was popular in just two countries

Last month, Texas-based internet cartographer and computer scientist John Matherly used software to 'ping' every web device on the globe, and used the signals to 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.

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.

Last year, Dr Graham and Mr De Sabbata used information collected by website analytics firm Alexa to map the largest websites around the world, as of July and August 2013. 

Google topped the list, in 62 countries, Facebook was the second most visited site globally, in 50 countries, while the third place site - China's Baidu search engine, was popular in just two countries.

To work out the number of visitors, Dr Mark Graham and Stefano De Sabbata from the institute combined the number of estimated average daily unique visitors, with the estimated number of page views for that site from users in a particular country, for a particular month.

Each colour represents the most visited website in that country and each three individual blocks represent around one million users.