Internet mapping observes how networks, routes, addresses, exchange points, and reachable endpoints connect across the global Internet—and how those connections change.
It looks beyond a company's own network to the autonomous systems, transit providers, address space, and routing relationships that move traffic across the public Internet. A static diagram cannot represent that system for long: BGP routes shift, providers announce and withdraw prefixes, endpoints become unavailable, and paths move across networks or jurisdictions.
Public measurement systems show why useful mapping needs more than one source. The RIPE NCC Routing Information Service collects BGP data to make routing behavior observable, while RIPE Atlas uses distributed probes to measure connectivity and reachability. CAIDA's Internet topology work combines active path probing with BGP-derived mappings to construct IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity graphs.
The goal is not simply to draw the Internet. It is to answer questions about dependency, exposure, performance, resilience, and compliance with evidence that can be examined over time.