Lots of people, myself included, have lamented the fact that for all America's dominance of the Internet, there are other countries, like South Korea, where they have better broadband service than we do. But when you look at the entire globe, it's obvious that the world is divided into Internet haves, and Internet have-nots. Play around with this interactive data visualization from Google:
The country with the highest proportion of Internet users? Greenland, at an admirable 91.6 per 100 (compared to 72.4 in the U.S.). I'll refrain from making a crack about the need for Internet access when you live in a bleak, windswept tundra. The lowest rate of access is that of Burma, which in 2007 (the last year of available data) had just one Internet user for every 1,000 citizens. There are also multiple countries in sub-Saharan Africa -- Mali, Niger, the Congo -- where access is at or below one per 100.
-- Paul Waldman
