About BGP Map
BGP Map draws the AS paths that networks around the world use to reach an IP prefix. Type a prefix, an address or an AS number and you get all of those routes in one picture, with a count on every link.
Where the routes come from
From RIPE RIS, the Routing Information Service run by the RIPE NCC. Its route collectors sit at Internet exchanges in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Africa. They keep BGP sessions with a few hundred networks and store every route those networks send. BGP Map asks the RIPEstat looking glass for the routes collected over the last 24 hours and draws them.
How the map is laid out
- Each box is an autonomous system. Its row is its distance, in AS hops, from the origin.
- The top row holds the collector peers, the networks whose routers share their routing table with RIS. The origin is the green box near the bottom, and the prefix is right under it.
- The number on a line counts the collector peers whose path uses that link.
- The red path is the one most peers chose.
- Only the 12 busiest paths are drawn, with at most five networks in a row. The tables under the map count every path.
What the colours mean
- Violet, marked T1: the transit-free networks, the ones that reach every route through peering and do not buy transit from anyone.
- Blue, marked T2: large national and international transit networks. There is no official Tier 2 list, so this one is kept by hand.
- Cyan: any other network that carries routes for someone else in the paths on the map.
- White: edge networks, which only pass on their own routes or hand them to a collector.
- Green is the origin, orange the prefix, and the red line the path most peers use.
How fresh it is
A map is built from routes fetched no more than a minute before you open it. If RIPEstat does not answer you may get a copy up to a day old, and the line under the map always says how old the data is.
Using the maps
Save a map with the PNG or SVG button under it. The data is also available as JSON at /json/<prefix>, for example /json/1.1.1.0/24. If you publish routes taken from here, please mention RIPE RIS.
Privacy
There are no accounts, cookies or analytics scripts. Besides the web server's usual access log, the site only counts which maps are opened. That count is where the popular list on the home page comes from.
Questions
Where does the data come from?
From RIPE RIS, the route collector project of the RIPE NCC. Its collectors peer with hundreds of networks around the world and record every route they receive. BGP Map reads those routes through the public RIPEstat API.
How up to date is a map?
Routes are fetched when you open a map and reused for up to a minute. RIS itself runs a few minutes behind live BGP, so a change you make usually shows up here within a few minutes.
What do the colours mean?
Violet boxes marked T1 are the transit-free Tier 1 networks and blue boxes marked T2 are large transit networks. Cyan boxes carry routes for other networks in these paths and white boxes do not. The origin is green, the prefix orange, and the red line is the path most peers use.
What does the red path mean?
It is the AS path the largest number of collector peers use. Your own network may take a different one, depending on the routing policy of your providers.
Why are some paths missing from the map?
To keep the picture readable it draws the 12 most used paths and at most five networks per row. The table under the map lists every path the collectors saw.
Can I use the maps elsewhere?
Yes. Every map can be downloaded as PNG or SVG, and the data behind it is available as JSON from the link under the map. Please credit RIPE RIS as the source of the routes.