Hot off the presses! Cloudflare just completed provisioning our Luxembourg City and Chișinău data centers, expanding our Europe network to 41 cities, and our global network to 151 cities across 74 countries. In the coming days, we'll ramp up traffic from across millions of websites using Cloudflare, and get routes optimized across all networks. Cloudflare is a participant at the Chișinău Internet Exchange (KIVIX), Luxembourg Commercial Internet eXchange (LU-CIX), and Moldova Internet Exchange (MD-IX), amongst ~180 other interconnection points.

This has been an exciting month, with 31 cities added just in March, for an average of one per day! Collectively, they provide additional resilience and performance across countries spanning a population of over one billion people. To recap, here's the list of our newest data centers: Beirut, Phnom Penh, Kathmandu, Istanbul, Reykjavík, Riyadh, Macau, Baghdad, Houston, Indianapolis, Montgomery, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Mexico City, Tel Aviv, Durban, Port Louis, Cebu City, Edinburgh, Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Jacksonville, Memphis, Tallahassee, Bogotá, Luxembourg and Chișinău!

We are very excited to surpass a milestone of 150 cities, or our sixth cohort of twenty-five cities. If the first five cohorts took 45 months, 15 months, 16 months, 8 months and 18 months, the most recent cohort was completed in 24 days.

As we evaluate new cities, our search begins by identifying cities (or ISPs) where we deliver a significant amount of traffic and/or can improve performance for a significant number of Internet users. Then, we assess the facilities we deploy at to ensure they can comply with a high standard for their information security practices, data center resilience and diversity of interconnection.

Our logistics team works to compile hardware from our the latest generation (which continues to evolve!) and manages the intricacies of shipping, often to a completely new city or country. Infrastructure Engineers work with our local partners to complete the physical install of hardware. Finally, entirely remotely, our engineering team provisions servers into service, while giving us the live analytics we need to ensure the integrity of our hardware, and supporting smooth operations. When a new city goes live, we often see a "bump up" in traffic as reduced latency facilitates increased page views and interconnection. From there on, our deployment grows, through the confluence of new customers signing up, new products being adopted, and increasingly, customers running their code at our edge - and we continue to invest in upgrades across our network.

Our aspiration for 2018 is for 95% of the world's Internet users to live in a country with a Cloudflare data center. (On a lighter note, I can't wait for us to turn up an upcoming data center beginning with the letter 'U', so that we can span every letter of the alphabet. See you soon, Mongolia!).

None of our deployments would be possible without the support of our many partners, team members and customers, who bring all of us closer to the promise of a better Internet.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

At 2625 meters (8612 feet) above sea level, Bogotá (Colombia) is one of the four highest capital cities in the world. Now, it is also home to Cloudflare's 149th data center.

This is the 29th city to be added just in March, and joins our existing Colombia datacenter in Medellín, launched four years ago.

CC BY-SA 2.0 image by nigel_sb

Bogotá is the third largest city in South America after São Paulo (Brazil) and Lima (Peru). Bogotanos affectionately known as Rolos are proud of their city with its rich cultural heritage, and its modern transportation systems (Ciclovias, Transmilenio) despite the heavy traffic. Whether you are visiting the world famous gold museum or savoring the mouthwatering Ajiaco soup, Bogotá has something for everyone, and visitors are always warmly received by the locals.

CC BY-SA 2.0 image by krossbow

Bogotá is our 11th deployment in the Latin America and Caribbean Region, and is located at a Tier III facility in the Bogota Free Trade Zone specially developed to attract ICT Investments. We'll continue our expansions in the Latin America and Caribbean region (and around the world!).

Come meet the Cloudflare team at the LACNIC29 Meeting in end April in Panama.

Good things come in threes! Following the launch of three data centers each in the Baltics (Riga, Tallinn, Vilnius) and in the Canadian Prairies (Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg), we're thrilled to announce three new data centers in the Southern United States!

Located in Jacksonville (Florida), Memphis (Tennessee), and Tallahassee (Florida), they represent the 146th, 147th and 148th cities across our growing global network, and our 40th, 41st and 42nd cities just in North America. They join existing Cloudflare facilities in the US, including other Florida / Tennessee deployments such as Miami, Tampa and Nashville. Just in March, we've added deployments in 28 new cities worldwide, which help reduce latency to millions of Internet properties using Cloudflare, while expanding our capacity to withstand new and familiar attacks.

Photo of Jacksonville Beach by Lance Asper / Unsplash

Whether you're doing the Memphis Main Street Crawl, experiencing history through a visit to Tallahassee's Mission San Luis de Apalachee, or just relaxing by the stunning beaches of Jacksonville, you'll be close to the nearest Cloudflare data center.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

We just turned up Calgary, Saskatoon and Winnipeg - Cloudflare’s 143rd, 144th, and 145th data centers. This brings our Canadian presence to six cities, joining Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. I grew up just outside of Saskatoon, so I couldn’t be happier that Cloudflare’s network has expanded to the Canadian Prairies. My parents still live there and I just booked flights to go and visit them this summer. When I tell people that I grew up in Saskatchewan, most people don’t know a lot about the region, so I wanted to share some of my favorite things about the region, starting from west to east:

• Calgary was home to the 1988 Winter Olympics and is a 90 minute drive from Banff, an incredible National Park that is absolutely worth visiting. Calgary has grown quickly over the last twenty years because of all the natural resources, including oil and gas. They host a famous rodeo, Calgary Stampede, for 10 days every summer. Definitely something to add to your bucket list. With Cloudflare’s new deployment in Calgary, we’ll make the Internet even faster for visitors. Hello Calgary!

• About 1 million people live in the province of Saskatchewan. Saskatoon is the largest city, while Regina is the capital of the province. Saskatoon is an under the radar city which is gaining steam. Vogue wrote it up in late 2016 as a place to visit. There is a brand new art museum that opened called the Remai Modern. Drive two hours north and you’ll find amazing lakes, and northern lights. My favorite lake is Waskesiu but you can’t go wrong with any of them. (Fun fact - there are more lakes than roads in Saskatchewan).

• Winnipeg is the city I have been to the least out of the three - mainly because it was a really far drive from where I grew up. Winnipeg is considered the “gateway to the west” and so an important transportation and railway hub. It’s a cultural center in Canada and home to many museums, including the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. One thing that always struck me about Winnipeg is that it is home to one of the windiest corners in North America - Portage + Main. While you can’t technically measure climate by street corner (yet), I’m pretty sure it is the windiest corner I have ever stood on.

Photo by Johny Goerend / Unsplash

The Canadian prairies are gorgeous, and home to some of the kindest people you will meet. I am proud that we are making the Internet faster, safer and more reliable for folks in that region.

Cloudflare is a participant at Calgary Internet Exchange (YYCIX), Saskatoon Internet Exchange (YXEIX) and Manitoba Internet Exchange (MBIX). We are big fans of the many volunteers who have worked hard to build these interconnection points, and foster an ecosystem around them. While all three cities currently have fairly limited local interconnection, Cloudflare is encouraging more ISPs to not just peer traffic in Canada (instead of the US), but interconnect across the Prairies as well.

The end of March is nearing and our team is working hard to hit our goal of 150 cities. Where to next?

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Cloudflare announces the turn up of our newest data centers located in Riga (Latvia), Tallinn (Estonia) and Vilnius (Lithuania). They represent the 140th, 141st and 142nd cities across our growing global network, and our 37th, 38th, 39th cities in Europe. We are very excited to help improve the security and performance of over 7 million Internet properties across 72 countries including the Baltic states.

We will be interconnecting with local networks over multiple Internet exchanges: Baltic Internet Exchange (BALT-IX), Lithuanian Internet eXchange Point (LIXP), LITIX, Tallinn Internet Exchange (TLLIX), Tallinn Governmental Internet Exchange (RTIX), Santa Monica Internet Local Exchange (SMILE-LV), and potentially, the Latvian Internet Exchange (LIX-LV).

If you are an entrepreneur anywhere in the world selling your product in these markets, or a Baltic entrepreneur reaching a global audience, we've got your back.

Photo by Siim Lukka / UnsplashLatvia, Estonia and Lithuania join the list of other countries with shorelines along the Baltic Sea and Cloudflare data centers. That list includes Denmark, Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia and Sweden.

Of the five countries that in the drainage basin but do not border the sea, Cloudflare has deployments located in three (Czech Republic, Norway, Ukraine) and is evaluating deployments in the remaining two.

CC BY 2.0 image by Kārlis Dambrāns

If you haven't already, consider visiting the Baltic States. Attractions include Estonia's over 2,000 islands (such as Saaremaa and Muhu), Lithuania's Trakai Island Castle (dating back to the 14th century!), Latvia's Art Nouveau district, and much more.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Our newest data center in Edinburgh expands our current total to 139 cities globally with a Cloudflare deployment. It also brings our UK total to 3 cities, after London and Manchester.

Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, located in the Lothian region. It has been recognised as the capital since the 15th century, and is the home of the Scottish government, parliament and supreme courts. It is a city of many hills, with important landmarks such as Edinburgh Castle being built at the top of a hill.

Photo by Nicola Gadler / Unsplash

One of the most famous events held each year in Edinburgh is the Fringe Festival, which is reported to be the world's largest arts festival. Many famous comedians have made their big break at this very festival.

The internet community in the UK is very well established, but mostly concentrated on London and Manchester, with a heavy emphasis on London. By deploying in Edinburgh we're encouraging ISPs to regionalise their traffic, away from just London. We're connected to IXScotland, and are actively seeking to peer with other connected networks, to help build the peering community.

Can you guess three more cities we'll announce deployments to in Europe? Comment your answers to be in with a chance of winning some Cloudflare swag.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Cebu City, the second most populous metro area, but oldest city in the Philippines is the home of Cloudflare’s newest Data Center.

Located centrally in the Philippines, Cebu has had a long standing tradition of trade and business activity, the word itself “Cebu” meaning trade. It’s central location brings excellent coverage to central and southern Philippines, while our existing location in Manila, serving the Manila Metro and northern Philippines.

Photo by Zany Jadraque / Unsplash

Cebu’s history covers hundreds of years, with rich local culture and international influence dating back from the first Spanish visitors to modern trade and shipping. One of the more popular dishes is Lechon.

Cebu is known for its white sand beaches. In between making millions of websites and applications faster and more secure for the Philippine internet users, we hope our servers can get some excellent R&R on the famous beaches.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Our newest data centers in Durban (South Africa) and Port Louis (Mauritius) expand the Cloudflare network to 137 cities globally. We are delighted to reach this special milestone, and even more excited to help improve the performance and security of over 7 million Internet properties (and growing!) across 69 countries.

Just in March, so far, we've launched new data centers across Beirut, Phnom Penh, Kathmandu, Istanbul, Reykjavík, Riyadh, Macau, Baghdad, Houston, Indianapolis, Montgomery, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, Mexico City and Tel Aviv!

Just three years (and about 100 cities ago!), we launched our very first Africa deployment in Johannesburg (South Africa). It was an exciting day for members of our team to facilitate an especially substantial latency improvement for our customers.

Since then, we’ve turned up additional deployments in Cairo (Egypt), Cape Town (South Africa), Djibouti (Djibouti), Luanda (Angola), and Mombasa (Kenya).

Durban is our third deployment in South Africa, where mobile adoption continues to drive traffic growth amongst 20 million Internet users. Other countries with three (or more) Cloudflare data centers are Australia, Canada, China, Germany and United States (with two European states joining this list very soon!). In addition to better serving KwaZulu-Natal, our Durban data center will provide additional redundancy and expand the surface area for Cloudflare to withstand potential DDoS attacks. We are participants at two interconnection points: NAP Africa IX Durban and DINX (Durban Internet Exchange).

Photo by Jörg Angeli / Unsplash

Port Louis (Mauritius), which used to be served out of our Mombasa data center, will see the latency-equivalent of 1,500 miles shaved off on every web request. Mauritius welcomes 1.3 million visitors from world over to experience the idyllic island - as many visitors as the local population! Even if you’re traveling on vacation (and choose to go online!), we’d love to ensure that you access a Cloudflare data center close to you. The reduction in latency and improvement in availability result in higher throughput to visitors. We do already do more traffic to Port Louis today than we did from Johannesburg in late 2014.

Throughput to Mauritius Telecom visitors increases for millions of Cloudflare customers

Several additional Africa data centers are actively in the works, with many expected to go live in the second half of 2018. We are especially keen to partner with ISPs in Central and West Africa, including in countries such as Nigeria, where four of the ten most popular Internet properties are protected by Cloudflare.

Correctly guess at least five of the upcoming cities being turned up in March, and we’ll send you some Cloudflare gear.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Our newest data center is now live in Tel Aviv, Israel! This expands our global network even further to span 135 cities across 68 countries.

Although Israel will only be turning 70 this year, it has a history so rich we’ll leave it to the textbooks. Despite its small size, and young age, Israel is home to one of the largest tech scenes, often referred to as Start-up Nation.

Haifa’s Matam technology park houses a few tech giants’ offices including Intel, Apple, Elbit, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Philips and more. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv serves a true hipster capital, with a high concentration of great coffee shops to serve its many startup employees and founders.

Some brag-worthy Israeli inventions include flash drives, Waze and cherry tomatoes. This is due to Israel’s excellent education. Israel is home of the top universities in the world, bringing Israel to be one of the top five nations in scientific publication per capita output. Israel also has one of the highest PhD and MD degrees per capita, and among of the highest nobel laureates per capita as well. Israeli mothers, your nagging has paid off.

CC BY-SA 4.0 image by Rita Kozlov (the author)

Native born Israelis are nicknamed “Sabras”, after a cactus fruit: prickly on the outside, soft and sweet on the inside. Indeed, if you find yourself wandering the markets in Israel, or waiting in line for a falafel, you will hear much shouting and bargaining. However, once an Israeli has let you into their home, you will find yourself met with warm hospitality.

Next week, we'll announce additional deployments to help make the Internet even faster.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

¡Mexicanos! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva México! ¡Viva México! No, no es el 16 de septiembre (Día de la Independencia de México). Sin embargo aquí en Cloudflare celebramos la introducción de nuestro Datacenter #134 en la Ciudad De México. Este Datacenter marca nuestra entrada en la nación Azteca. Anteriormente el tráfico de México era servido desde algunos de nuestros otros Datacenters (principalmente McAllen, TX, Dallas, TX y Los Angeles, CA).

Mexicans! Long Live Mexico! Long Live Mexico! Long Live Mexico! No, its not the 16th of September (Mexico Independence Day). However at Cloudflare we are proud to introduce our Datacenter #134 located in Mexico City Mexico. This data center marks our entrance into the Aztec Nation. Prior to this, traffic to Mexico was served from some of our other datacenters (Primarily Mcallen, TX, Dallas, TX and Los Angeles, CA).

El área metropolitana de México cuenta con mas de 21 millones de habitantes quienes desde hoy podrán difrutar más rápido acesso a más de 7 millones de Sitios y aplicaciones en Internet servidos por Cloudflare. Este sera nuestro décimo centro de datos en la region de América Latina y El Caribe.

The Mexico City Metropolitan Areas have more than 21 million inhabitants, who from today will enjoy faster access to more than 7 million websites which are served and accelerated by Cloudflare. This is our 10th Datacenter in the Latin America Region.

CC BY-NC 2.0 image by kevin53

Para nuestro despliegue en México agradecemos a Kio Networks. Adicionalmente muy pronto estaremos interconectando con el IXP México. Si usted vive en Guadalajara, Monterrey o Queretaro esten al pendiente que tendremos buenas noticias para ustedes tambien.

For this deployment we would like to thank our partner from Kio Networks and we will also be interconnecting to the Mexico IXP If you live in Guadalajara, Monterrey or Queretaro, stay tuned more great news coming your way

El equipo de Cloudflare de América Latina estará presente en el evento E-Retail Day el 15 de marzo en el Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel. Les invitamos a asistir y platicar con nuestro equipo.

The Cloudflare Latin America Team will be present in Mexico City for the E-Retail Day Event the 15 of March at the Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel. We invite you to attend and chat with our team.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

When Cloudflare launched, three of the original five cities in our network - Chicago, Ashburn and San Jose - were located in the United States. Since then, we have grown the breadth of the global network considerably to span 66 countries, and even expanded the US footprint to twenty five locations. Even as a highly international business, the United States continues to be home to a number of our customers and the majority of Cloudflare employees.

Today, we expand our network in the United States even further by adding five new locations: Houston (Texas), Indianapolis (Indiana), Montgomery (Alabama), Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania) and Sacramento (California) as our 129th, 130th, 131st, 132nd and 133rd data centers respectively. They represent states that collectively span nearly 100 million people. In North America alone, the Cloudflare network now spans 37 cities, including thirty in the US.

In each of these new locations, we connect with at least one major local Internet service provider and also openly peer using at least one major Internet exchange. We are participants at CyrusOne IX Houston, Midwest IX Indianapolis, Montgomery Internet Exchange, Pittsburgh IX, and the upcoming Sacramento IX.

These deployments improves performance, security and reliability for our customers, even while expanding the edge (and the compute capability it enables). In the not too distant future, we’d like to deploy at cell towers across major metro markets (and beyond!) to support the next generation of 5G-enabled applications.

With the launch of our next data center, Cloudflare will have deployments located in all of the ten most populous North American metropolitan areas.

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Cloudflare's newest data center is located in Baghdad, Iraq, in the region often known as the cradle of civilization. This expands our growing Middle East presence, while serving as our 45th data center in Asia, and 128th data center globally.

Even while accelerating over 7 million Internet properties, this deployment helps our effort to be closer to every Internet user. Previous, ISPs such as Earthlink were served from our Frankfurt data center. Nearly 40 million people live in Iraq.

One of the world's largest producers of the sweet date palm, Iraq's cuisine dates back over 10,000 years and includes favorites such as,

• Kleicha: Date-filled cookies flavored with cardamom, saffron and rose water

• Mezza: a selection of appetizers to begin the meal

• Iraqi Dolma: stuffed vegetables with a tangy sauce

• Iraqi Biryani: cooked rice with spices, beans, grilled nuts and meat / vegetables

• Masgouf: whole baked fish marinated in oil, salt, pepper, turmeric and tamarind

Baghdad is the first of eight deployments joining the Cloudflare global network just this week. Stay tuned!

This map reflects the network as of the publish date of this blog post. For the most up to date directory of locations please refer to our Network Map on the Cloudflare site.

Cloudflare's 127th data center is now live in Macau, helping make over 7 million Internet facing applications safer and faster. This is our 44th data center in Asia.

Cloudflare 將在澳門啟用全球第127個數據中心, 幫助超過 7,000,000 客戶的互聯網資產運行得更快、更安全。澳門也是我們在亞洲的第44個數據中心。

O 127º centro de dados da Cloudflare agora está em funcionamento em Macau, ajudando a tornar mais de 7 milhões de aplicações voltadas para a Internet de forma mais segura e rápida. Estamos felizes em compartilhar que este é o nosso 44º centro de dados na Ásia.

_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 image by kidchen915_

Blending Chinese and Portuguese culture, just last year, Macau welcomed over 30 million visitors. Visit Macau to experience its unique and extravagant entertainment scene, see scenic spots such as the Ruins of St Paul, Senado Square, attempt the world's highest bungy jump from Macau Tower, or enjoy the foodie paradise Macau delivers!

有著與眾不同的中國及葡萄牙文化融合景觀，澳門至去年為止已經吸引了三千萬遊客來一睹她的風采。你可以拜訪著名的娛樂景觀，像是聖保祿大教堂遺址，議事亭廣場，挑戰澳門的美食，亦可以選擇從全世界最高的高空彈跳地點ㄧ澳門旅遊塔上一躍而下。

Combinando cultura chinesa e portuguesa, o ano passado, Macau recebeu mais de 30 milhões de visitantes. Recomendamos que visite Macau para experimentar a cena de entretenimento única e extravagante, explore os pontos cénica, como ruínas de São Paulo, Praça do Senado, e ainda, tente o "bungee jumping" mais alto do mundo deste da Torre de Macau, ou aproveite o paraíso da gastronomia que Macau oferece!

While Macau and it's bigger sister across the Pearl River, Hong Kong share many similarities, one big difference is Egg Tarts. Egg tarts are suggested to have been introduced into Hong Kong in the 1940's while Macau favors the portuguese style which dates back hundreds of years. Both have been adapted for local flavors and both are wonderful! Which do you like best?

雖然澳門以及香港有著許多相似之處，他們對於蛋塔的喜好卻有相當大的不同。話說蛋塔大約於1940年代左右才被引入香港，而澳門當地人偏好的葡式蛋塔卻已有百年歷史了。兩地都將他們對於蛋塔的喜好昇華成不可或缺的美食。您喜歡哪種多一點呢？

Enquanto Macau e a irmã a sua irmã do outro lado do rio das pérolas, Hong Kong, ambas compartilham muitas semelhanças, uma grande diferença seriam algumas especialidades culinárias. Os deliciosos pastéis de nata, foram introduzidos em Hong Kong na década de 1940, enquanto Macau favorece o estilo português que remonta a centenas de anos. Ambos foram adaptados para sabores locais e ambos são maravilhosos! Qual é o seu favorito (pastel de nata)?

Next week, we'll announce even more cities around the globe added to the Cloudflare global network.

澳門只是個起點！從下週起，我們將會逐漸宣佈更多城市加入 Cloudflare 的全球網路。

Na próxima semana, anunciaremos ainda mais localidades ao redor do mundo a serem adicionadas à rede global Anycast da Cloudflare.

We are very excited to announce Cloudflare’s 126th data center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (only hours after launching in Reykjavík!). This joins our existing Middle East facilities to provide even stronger coverage and resilience for over 7 million Internet properties across the region.

Our newest deployment was made possible in partnership with Zain, which now experiences reduced latency for every Internet user accessing every Internet facing application using Cloudflare. At least four additional Middle East deployments are already in the works.

Photo by Mohammed Alamri / Unsplash

Over 30 million people live in Saudi Arabia, which is also the 13th largest country by area at over 830,000 square miles. In 2020, alongside the launch of entirely new “economic cities”, we might witness the opening of the world’s tallest skyscraper at a staggering 1,000m height, located in Jeddah. More modestly, but in much less than two years from now, we also expect to place a Cloudflare data center there.

Saudi Arabia has an incredibly young demographic, as over half of the population is less than 25. Additional 4G LTE deployments, while also paving the way for 5G, should drive increased Internet usage.

Stay tuned as we continue to add new deployments in the Middle East, and around the world.

Iceland is a small country in Northern Europe, a land of active volcanoes and boiling hot geysers. The geology and climate creates unique conditions for running compute power. With an abundance of green electricity and natural cooling, many companies are placing high power machines in Iceland to run power intensive, heat generating operations. Reykjavík is our 125th location globally.

A unique aspect about Iceland relates to how it connects to the Internet, being situated on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge means submarine cables are necessary to reach networks in other countries. Iceland has three active fibre optic submarine cables that land on its shores: FARICE-1, DANICE and Greenland Connect. Due to the distance, latency to the nearest Cloudflare locations in London and Copenhagen starts at 35 milliseconds. By deploying in Reykjavík, we're able to drive down latency even further to a minimum of under 1 millisecond.

Iceland is unique in many ways, but is no different from other countries when it comes to exchanging internet traffic. ISNIC, Iceland's Network Information Centre runs RIX, the Reykjavík Internet Exchange. Cloudflare is the only CDN network connected to RIX, allowing traffic to flow directly to Icelandic networks.

Photo by Frank Denney / Unsplash

Iceland pulls above its small weight with a population of only 330K. That is 1/1000th population of the United States (but guess which one qualified for the football World Cup this year).

Iceland's Parliament is the oldest in the world, tracing its history to 930 AD.

Like many of its fellow Scandinavian countries it is a progressive country in many ways, ranked number one by the World Economic Forum for women for nine straight years.

Iceland was the first country to elect a female president in 1980.

Iceland has become a hotspot for tourism with over 2 million visiting last year, now Cloudflare is present in Iceland you can can reach websites on Cloudflare with speed and reliability. Thanks to ubiquitous cellular coverage across the country, you're never far away from a website using Cloudflare.

Cloudflare is excited to turn up our newest data center in Istanbul, Turkey. This is our 124th data center globally (and 62nd country), and it is throwing a curveball in our data center by continent tracking. Istanbul is one of the only cities in the world to span two continents: Europe and Asia. Technically, we’ll specify this is our 34th data center in Europe. In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to attract more traffic to this deployment as more networks interconnect with us locally.

March 2018 is a big month for us, as we’ll be announcing (on average) nearly one new Cloudflare data center per day. Stay tuned as we continue to meaningfully expand our geographic coverage and capacity.

The Hagia Sophia - Photo by Blaque X / Unsplash

Istanbul itself is home to more than 16 million people, and Turkey is home to over 80 million people. For reference, Turkey’s population is comparable to Germany’s, where Cloudflare turned up its 11th, 31st, 44th, 72nd and 110th data centers in Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. Internet usage in Turkey is approaching 70%, while the rate of Turkish households with access to Internet now exceeds 80% with a majority of households relying on mobile broadband connection. With its dense population and historical prominence on Silk Road, Istanbul has a history of leading the way in commerce. Today, Turkey has one of the youngest populations in Europe, fueling early massive adoption in social media and e-commerce, especially in dense urban areas.

From one great empire to the next - we’ll head from Istanbul, home of the Ottoman Empire, formerly Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire, to the land of the Vikings for our 125th data center. (As for the data centers previewed as “south of the equator”, they come in pairs, and we’ll announce them very soon)